







* o 



O > 



4 O 









4 O -C 



s m V 




* A 



* • «5 °^ 



• A * r 



o_ * 




r oK 



•v.*' ^o 




<J> * O H ° O, 1 





0^ \5 












/\ 




,«'■' 



^^ •.'S 








vV 












• « ° ^ 








\V 



^ .0 



















to '* 




* * o <£, 




















**o< 



n 










> *<^7i* A 









- w • 










* A 









/^v. %■ A* ,S 



^0" 







J^^Jj &hn 


A 

SPONSE j 

C3/S 

OF THE *?4> 

[N Magwire ? 


-- 


REI 


Hon. 


Job 



TO A RESOLUTION OF THE NATIONAL LABOR COUNCIL, 

TOUCHING THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PUBLIC 

LANDS AND GIVING HIS VIEWS OF A 

JUST SYSTEM OF AMERICAN 

FINANCE. 

• ALSO 

_a_:n~ a.:d:d:r,:e]Ss 

BY THE 



HON. R. F. WINGATE ? 

ON 



AMERICAN FINANCE: 
ITS EVILS AJSTD EEMEDIE8. 



ST. LOUIS, MO. 

PRINTED BY JOHN J. DALY & CO., 213 N. THIRD STREET. 
1874. 



(p U.S.A. *)) 










H ■■■■)■ 






: 



Office of the National Labor Council, 

Washington City, March 20th, 1873. 

On motion of A. E. Bedstone, the following resolutions were 
unanimously adopted : 

Resolved — That the National Labor Council of the United States admire the 
arguments of Hon. John Magwire upon the money question, recently published 
in the Washington Daily Chronicle, defining the nature and sovereignty of the 
United States upon paper dollars. 

Resolved — That the Council request Hon. John Magwire to give his views upon 
the question of the distribution of the public lands of the United States. 



St. Louis, Mo., December 20th, 1873. 
Gentlemen of the National Laboe Council : 

Before responding to the second resolution above set out, I deem 
it not improper to give a brief statement of the action taken by the 
National Labor ^Reform Organization on the question involved. 

At a meeting of that body, held in Philadelphia, July, 1869, on 
motion of Genl. A. M. West, of Mississippi, a committee of five was 
appointed to prepare an address which would embody the public land 
question, to be reported to the next annual meeting of that body, to 
be holden at Cincinnati, Ohio, August, 1870. 

The committee consisted of Genl. A. M. West, of Mississippi ; 
Major A. M. Puett, of Indiana ; McGlaughin, of Massachusetts ; 
Alexander Campbell, of Illinois ; and John Magwire, of Missouri. 

A majority of the committee, to- wit : Puett, Campbell and 
Magwire, met in Washington City, in January, 1870. An address, 
which included the public land question, was then and there pre- 
pared ; and, by special resolution of the House, permission was 
given, and the address was read in the House of Representatives 
on the evening of the 3d of February, 1870, by Thomas S. Nelson, 
Esq., the then acting assistant secretary of the committee. 



That part of the address which related to the public lands, and 
contained in nine propositions, was published in the Washington 
City papers and New York Herald the next morning, and is as 
follows : 

First. Let the past remain undisturbed and the landed posses- 
sions of present owners be held as vested rights, (as a policy, if not 
as a principle,) let the national domain that remains (it is abundant 
for all time) be divided, not for sale, as heretofore, but for distribu- 
tion among the people, the owners of the soil. 

Second. The quantity of land for each claimant to be fixed 
according to a standard of sufficiency in money, and the amount of 
the quantity to vary according to the money value of the land. 

Third. The quantity of land thus fixed to be the endowment of 
each applicant, of every age, either sex, and any condition of citizen- 
ship, complete or incohate. 

Fourth. Each applicant to relinquish to Congress, in trust for 
the people, and in case of minors, by their guardians, all right of 
inheritance in land belonging to him or her at the time, or accruing 
in the future; or, at option, to make restoration of the endowment 
because of such future inheritance. 

Fifth. Endowed land to be exempt from all liability of debt or 
taxation to the amount of the original money sufficiency, and to be 
incapable of alienation or transfer of any kind, for any consideration 
or for any period of time whatsoever, and such alienation or transfer, 
if made, to be void. 

Sixth. But the surplus value which may be added thereto by 
the owner to be his absolute property, at his disposal, and subject to 
his liabilities. 

Seventh. The original sufficiency in the land always to survive 
to an heir or devisee, (unless such heir or devisee be already en- 
dowed, or be otherwise endowed thereafter,) and in default of such 
heir or devisee, to return itself to Congress, to be granted to an 
unendowed applicant, as before provided. 



Eighth. When the amount of sufficiency in the land is increased 
threefold or over in money value, it shall be separated from the 
grant, if susceptible of division in kind, and returned to the grantor 
for a similar use by another applicant ; if not susceptible of division, 
its money value shall be paid to Congress upon reasonable terms of 
time and amount ; or if the money value, according to the rule of 
sufficiency, shall be paid by the grantee at any time to Congress — in 
either of these cases, the whole of the land shall become the absolute 
property in fee of the grantee. 

Ninth. The money thus paid shall be funded and expended in 
annuities to minors and the superannuated, within certain limits of 
age, in lieu of land endowments, if desired. 

The plan hereinabove proposed was submitted to some of the most 
eminent statesmen and jurists of the country, receiving the strong 
approbation, among many others, of the late Hon. Thomas Ewing, 
of Ohio, and Hon. Francis P. Blair, Sr. A letter on this subject 
was addressed to me by the Hon. J. S. Black, a portion of which is 
as follows : 

York, P'enna., 
April 4, 1871. 
To John Magwire — 

My Dear Sir — The plan in connection with labor reform, for 
giving each individual citizen a sufficiency of the public lands, was 
explained to me with great perspicuity (the Judge refers to a 
period twelve months prior, when I requested his opinion). If I 
had not been convinced then, my more recent conversations with 
you, together with the reading I gave in the meantime to some able 
papers on the subject, has had that effect. What is proposed would, 
it seems to me, extirpate pauperism among all but those who prefer 
beggary to any other condition. It would stimulate industry and 
remove, in a large measure, the temptation to vice. It can hardly 
fail, if established, to have a most benificent effect. I do not doubt 
the power of the Federal Government to do all that you wish done 
to promote your plan, for it interferes with no vested right, and 
comes in conflict with no provision of the fundamental law. I am 
one of those who wish well to your movement, because I know it 
has touched some of the best hearts in the country, and enlisted the 



sympathies of the truest patriots among us. Here, in my own state, 
it is becoming more manifest every day that society cannot hold 
together much longer unless the rights of labor are better secured 
against the overgrown power of concentrated capital. 

(Signed) J. S. Black. 

The address goes on to state : " The report of the Commissioner 
of the General Land Office, dated June 30, 1869, stated that there 
was then remaining undisposed of thirteen hundred and ninety-seven 
millions, six hundred and eighty-three thousand, eight hundred and 
seventy- acres of public lands. " 

The plan of the address referred solely to lands undisposed of, and 
did not apply to any lands at that time alienated from the public 
domain. The doctrine of the address was based upon the laws of 
nature which provide for a distribution of the natural elements 
given to man in common, and to which written constitutions must 
conform — and contended that no one was entitled to a surplus of 
common gifts which deprived another of a sufficiency. Says an 
eminent American philosopher and jurist : " Of the things per- 
taining to this earth, there are some which belong to us in common 
with all others, such as light, air, water and the soil. When the 
human race went forth, the divine mandate at the beginning, to take, 
use and enjoy the things of this earth, became thus early the birth- 
right of man. And the long chain of title which is fastened to the 
throne of the Divine author, extends through hundreds of successive 
generations of the human race without break or interruption to the 
present day." 

This historical fact is the foundation of the human law of property 
and the truth of the assertion that to mankind belong the things 
of earth as a gift from above, and is prior to all other laws and 
regulations for the disposal of property. 

The right to acquire and exercise authority over these things, 
to subdue the earth, as it is said, is universally said to be a natural 
right. Man is conscious of a double life, and therefore the only 
animal that looks up ; all others look down. When man's body goes 
back to the earth, it takes with it all that is belonging to the earth ; 
when the spirit body leaves the clay body, it takes nothing visible 
or tangible belonging to the earth, yet he cannot fulfill the duties 
required by the law of his being if deprived of the necessary produc- 
tions of the earth. This is true of the man in the palace, the 



alms-house, or the prison. The decree that mam shall eat bread in 
the sweat of his face none can escape. When that decree went 
forth all the elements necessary to fulfill it had been provided, and 
when man can command a sufficiency of these elements necessary for 
the fulfillment of that decree, in proportion to his labor will his 
toil be rewarded. Whence, then, do governments, by constitutions 
and laws, derive the authority of depriving him of a sufficiency of 
those natural elements, and thus attempt to thwart, as it were ; the 
divine decree. 

Certainly the founders of this republic did not intend to deprive 
man of a sufficiency of the soil, when they declared that all men 
have an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 
In order to proceed logically, it is necessary to take a retrospective 
view of the origin of our being as a political people and a National 
Confederacy. The colonists (at least the large majority) brought 
with them to this country the laws and customs of Great Britain, 
and subsequently all were governed by such customs and laws. 
The Baronial system was often adopted by giving large grants 01 
land to persons living in the various colonies. Genl. Washington, at 
the age of nineteen, was three years engaged in running the 
exterior boundary lines of Lord Fairfax's grant in Virginia ; and so, 
in Maryland, large grants were given by the crown to Lord Bal- 
timore and others. These people, and others like them, that came 
from the aristocracy of England, never would have begun the Revo- 
lution. It is claimed, and I believe truly, by the historian, Geo. 
Lvnn Lacklan Davis, that the day star of religious liberty on this 
continent first dawned in Maryland. But it is equally true that 
the day star of political freedom first dawned in Massachusetts. 
The colonists had lived among the Indians, who, savages as they were, 
had some noble qualities, one of which was most notable, namely : 
they would brook no restraint to their political freedom. Those 
restless colonists no doubt saw that they too might turn savages if in 
no other way political freedom could be attained, and therefore it was, 
perhaps, that they were educated by the Indian without knowing 
it. They met and put forth the noble doctrine contained in the 
immortal declaration of 4th of July, 1776. The doctrine therein 
avowed that man was capable of self-government, was the first 
successful blow struck at the doctrine of the" divine right of kings." 
The inalienable right to life and the pursuit of happiness was not 



6 

the issue upon which England took up arms. At the close of the 
revolution, our statesmen proceeded to establish a constitution by 
which the pursuit of happiness was- secured to all. What is hap- 
piness ? and how is man to pursue it ? I take it that it means that 
when a nation is politically free, the people thereof will have an 
inalienable right to a sufficiency of all the natural elements, which, 
with the co-operation of their labor, will enable them to fulfill the 
law of their being; and being secured in the use of a sufficiency of 
these elements, they are then in a condition to pursue happiness or 
misery as they may choose. But the decree that man shall eat bread 
in the sweat of his face is anterior to all human law, and means 
that he shall support himself and not encroach on any one else. 

If man, politically free, produces from year to year — that is to say, 
from harvest to harvest — a sufficiency for himself and nothing 
more, he may be content. " But the laws of population behooves 
man to produce enough to support himself and wife and two chil- 
dren ; or that the joint labor of man and wife produce a support 
for themselves and children until the latter attain an age when they 
can support themselves, and, in addition, to lay up a sufficiency 
to support themselves when they shall be no longer able to work." 
Whatever may be attained beyond this is so much added to the 
wealth of the state. If, however, he fails to support himself — 
having the free use of all the elements necessary to that end — he 
cannot claim charity, unless from personal misfortune he is unable to 
labor. In our republic where the people are the sovereigns, and each 
entitled to his heritage of a sufficiency of the soil to support himself, 
pauperism should not be allowed. Under such conditions charity can 
be refused, and man of necessity be obliged to support him self. On 
the other hand, where man is deprived of a sufficiency of that to which 
he has a natural right, viz., the soil, and is unable to find employ- 
ment, he can justly demand charity of those who have appropriated 
to themselves a "surplus of a common gift. This is the doctrine of 
communism. If our territory were confined to the limits of the orig- 
inal thirteen states, and the system of granting to single persons or 
large corporations a surplus of the natural elements which would 
deprive another of a sufficiency, and the money of commerce con- 
trolled by such persons or corporations, communism would long 
since have taken root in this country. The vastness of our ter- 
ritory alone keeps it off for the present. To propose s change in 






the system of disposing of the public lands at this date may seem 
unwarranted, yet the author is good. It is in the Constitution 
itself. Section III., article 4, of that instrument declares : " The 
Congress shall have power to dispose of, and make all needful 
rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property 
belonging to the United States." It is under this section that Con- 
gress claims the right to sell and donate the public lands to corpor- 
ations. To dispose of is defined by Webster : " To distribute — to put 
in place — to arrange — to put in order — management" — and numer- 
ous other definitions much more applicable to the plan here pro- 
posed, for dividing and giving to each citizen a sufficiency for sup- 
port, than to the words sell or donate. When we look back to 
ascertain what the statesmen who succeeded the founders of the 
republic have done to secure each citizen a sufficiency of the soil — 
his natural heritage — we find no record to that effect. We find 
that their patriotic lives and splendid talents have been spent in 
expounding the political doctrines of the Constitution. 

There is but one remedy. The people, who are the sovereigns, 
must instruct their agents in Congress how to dispose of their lands 
and other matters, what laws are needed, and how they shall be 
formed. Having, I think, shown that each citizen is entitled by 
heritage to a sufficiency of the soil from the public domain, and that 
no one is entitled to a surplus of those lands, which will deprive 
another of a sufficiency, it may be well to give in detail a further 
explanation of the several propositions in the published address of 
the committee referred to. 

First. "Let the past remain undisturbed and the landed posses- 
sions of present owners be held as vested rights. Let the national 
domain that remains be divided, not as heretofore, for sale, but for 
distribution." 

Upon this proposition, says the great jurist, Judge J. S. Black : 
" This will not interfere with any vested right or come in conflict 
with any provision of the fundamental law." 

Second. " The quantity of land to be fixed according to a 
standard of sufficiency in money." 

The quantity for a sufficiency in land must, of course, be alike in 
all cases, the quantity only varying according to its quality. This 
embodies the third proposition also. 



8 

Fourth. Each, applicant to relinquish to Congress all right of 
inheritance in land at the time or accruing in the future. 

This proposition protects against fraud. The public lands remain- 
ing are for those who do not own any. And when one applies — 
no matter how — he can receive no land unless he first conveys to 
Congress that which he already owns, to be held tor the same uses 
and trusts. If he already owns a quantity greater or more valuable 
than that which he is entitled to receive, he will, of course, not sur- 
render the greater for the smaller. Those who are entitled will 
watch this point against fraud or deception. 

' Fifth. Endowed land to be free from liability of debt or taxation 
to the amount, of the original money sufficiency, and to be incapable 
of alienation, and if transferred, such transfer to be void. 

That is to say, the citizen should not be taxed for his attribute of 
citizenship, nor should he be permitted to squander his heritage and 
thereby become a pauper, — a burden on the state. It is for the 
common good that no one should be allowed to become a pauper ; 
and when the state has provided the citizen with the means of self- 
support, he cannot become a pauper, unless, as Judge Black remarks, 
" he prefers beggery to any other condition of life. " The law of 
charity should exclude him from that relief which it extends to the 
afflicted and unfortunate. 

Sixth. " The surplus that may be added thereto by the owner, 
to be his absolute property, at his disposal, and subject to his 
liabilities. " 

This explains itself; he is to enjoy and dispose of the products of 
his labor, or the enhanced value of his privilege, no matter how 
obtained; but of his sufiiciency he cannot dispose, thus depriving 
himself of one of the attributes of his citizenship — becoming a pauper, 
nor can the state deprive him of that right unless for cause. 

Seventh. The original sufiiciency to survive to an heir or 
devisee, unless such heir or devisee be already provided for, and in 
default of such heir or devisee, to return itself to Congress, to be 
granted to unendowed applicant, as before provided. 

This proposition is so clear as to need no explanation. 

Eighth. " When the amount of the sufficiency in the land is 
increased three-fold or over in money value, it shall be separated 
from the grant, if susceptible of division in ' kind, and returned to 
the grantor for similar use to another applicant ; if not susceptible 



9 

of division, its money value shall be paid to Congress upon reason- 
able terms of time and amount, or if the money value, according 
to the rules of sufficiency shall be paid by the grantee at any time 
to Congress, in either of these cases, the whole of the land shall 
become the absolute property in fee of the grantee." 

Ninth. "The money thus paid shall be funded and expended 
in annuities to minors and the superannuated, within certain limits 
of age, in lieu of land endowments, if desired. " 

By these two propositions, ample provision is made for the helpless 
out of the public lands. It may be objected that the citizen from 
his sufficiency who can acquire an absolute title in the manner 
described in the eighth proposition, will speculate by procuring 
deeds and sell the lands ad infinitum. But it will be observed that 
he cannot acquire a title unless he pays back to Congress, in money 
or land the amount of the original sufficiency ; and that he cannot 
take of the public lands so long as he holds other lands. This is 
an estoppal in itself to any such course. When the Government 
parts with its title, as above alluded to — it will be for an equivalent 
in money or in land, — the money to be expended on the superanuated 
or helpless, the land held for another applicant. Thus the great 
resource, the lands, from which all support is derived, can be made, 
by proper laws, self-supporting and an inexhaustible reservoir of 
good. But prominent politicians, I will not say eminent statesmen, 
exclaim : " what, do you mean that the blacksmith shall quit his 
anvil, the weaver his loom, the hatter his block, the professional man 
his calling and go farming on a small scale ? " No ; we mean noth- 
ing of that kind. Whilst the averment that all are equally entitled 
to a sufficiency of the soil may suggest the idea that all should pursue 
an agricultural life, it is not necessary they should; nor is it just to 
deprive them of this sufficiency if they choose some other occupation. 
If ten men own five acres each as a homestead in many of the Wes- 
tern States, two of the men, with their families, can produce upon the 
fifty acres enough to support the ten, and at this ratio population can 
be supplied. Now, if the eight men rent their forty acres to the two 
who will engage to supply the bread and meat, the eight can embark 
in other pursuits, and so on to any amount ; the eight, for instance, 
engaged in furnishing the two with implements of culture and trans- 
portation to market. The eight men may utterly fail in their enter- 
prises, then they are destitute; they cannot pay for the bread and 

b 



10 

meat, of which the two engaged in agriculture have an abundance 
and to spare, but there is no equivalent to be had for their surplus. 
The two in that case will not produce a surplus to feed the eight. 
They will go on, however, from year to year, raising enough for their 
own support, which they can easily do on their ten acres, giving up 
the forty acres to the other eight who have not parted with their 
land. Now, if these eight men are properly secured in their lands by 
law, will it injure their condition to have these lands to fall back 
upon? 

Take for instance the statistics of New York City. There was in 
that city in the winter of 1873, a number of persons, twice the 
number of the entire United States army, who produced noth- 
ing. To keep these persons in order (such as it is) the number, 
including officers of courts, alms-houses, prisons and police force, was 
equal in number to the entire army of the United States. Now 
these persons are all entitled to a sufficiency for their support. Is 
their condition bettered by being deprived of it ? Will the knowl- 
edge that Congress has set apart for them a sufficiency of the soil, to 
which, if they apply their labor they can support themselves, be a 
disadvantage ? Will it not, in fact, lessen the temptation to vice ? 
But it is objected that these persons would not leave New York to 
settle on land in the West ; that, even if willing to do so, they are 
prevented from want of means to get there and support themselves 
until a crop could be raised. While that may be so, and is their 
misfortune, it is no reason for depriving them of their natural and 
inalienable right to a homestead. Mr. Greeley exclaimed, " Why do 
not these people go west, take up lands and go to farming?" When 
asked how they would get there and live on wild lands, he remarked 
that he could not tell how, but that the people would find out for 
themselves and invent some way. But Mr. Greeley, whose long life 
of usefulness, his wonderful progressive industry, pure patriotism and 
religious charity, the American people will always remember, did not 
live long enough to discover the virtue of the plan of the National 
Labor Reform Party or the National Labor Council for securing to 
every citizen his heritage in the soil, and that other, more exciting, 
though less important question, of establishing a correct American 
monetary system, although in his last years he approached each so 
nearly as to leave but little difference. But to go back to New York > 
(and apportionate conditions are to be found in all other cities) in 



11 

that city in the winter of 1872, by estimate of the various Trade 
Unions and Labor Eeform Associations, 150,000 working men were 
unable to find employment. Of course all of these could not sud- 
denly pack up and go west, or all go to farming, nor would it be nec- 
essary, as I have shown in the case of the eight men above referred 
to. Suppose 10,000 should go and locate upon their homesteads (say 
of five acres each), that would take up 50,000 acres. Say 3,000 of 
the 10,000 would be sufficient to do the farming, leaving 7,000 to 
engage in other persuits. Now, the people of New York would 
greatly contribute to furnishing the means of their getting west if 
assured that 50,000 acres of the soil were secured to them by right 
of heritage, and that they could not be deprived of it. I propose, 
however, to deal in facts, and like Mr. Greeley, leave the people to 
exercise their own judgment, for there is not much that conduces 
to the comfort of man that the American people will not find out 
and enjoy. 

There is one other view of the distribution of the soil to which I 
desire to call attention, and which is peculiar to our republic, to-wit: 
In monarchial forms of government the sovereignty resides in the 
king or emperor, and to them belong the ownership of the soil. In 
our republic, where the sovereignty rests exclusively with the people, 
or in a majority of them — the rights of the minority being protected 
by the Constitution — the government and the people are one and the 
same. Our Constitution, which provides for certain agents, elected 
or appointed by the people, nowhere speaks of a government. The 
agencies therein provided for to carry out the wishes of the people 
are selected from among the people, and by the people. Thus the 
ownership of the soil rests in the people, and can only be disposed of 
with their consent. By a wise exercise of this sovereign power, 
the American people can, at all times, guard themselves against 
oppression and the wasteful distribution of the public lands, and the 
control of the money of commerce in the hands of organized monop- 
olies. As instanced in the beginning, such grants as were made by 
the crown to Lord Fairfax, in Virginia, which occupied Washington, 
when a surveyor, three years to run the boundary line, can and 
should be prohibited. I may remark, in passing, that, extensive as 
was the grant to Lord Fairfax, not a descendant of his Lordship now 
owns a loot of it. If the monarchial government had been main- 
tained, of course such estates as the Fairfax and others would have 



12 

descended and held in mortmain. The results have shown that 
individuals who have appropriated to themselves large areas of land 
for agricultural purposes have been, obliged from year to year to 
diminish the quantity until it reaches the amount which the farmer 
and his family can cultivate without hired labor, and that is the 
maximum. It is a fact, established by the census reports, that the 
average rate of farming interest does not exceed two and a half per 
cent, per annum. This per centum is made a general rule only 
where the farmer and his family can cultivate the land they own by 
their own labor. How rare it is to find a farmer, with a number of 
children, who can provide for each of them a sufficient quantity of 
land to support them and their families. Hence it is that, to use a 
common expression, they have " to strike out for themselves." It 
would, I think, follow that if the plan proposed, of securing to all 
entitled a homestead, should be adopted by Congress, the system 
would become retroactive. The holders of large areas would be 
obliged to dispose of all but that which they can make pay. The 
citizen, on his way to the wild lands, will have opportunities, in 
many instances, to acquire a sufficiency where he will not be entirely 
isolated from the society of church and schools. In that event, he 
cannot be imposed upon in regard to price ; for if held too high, he 
has his own heritage to go upon ; the large land owners being obliged 
to distribute, the purchaser is free, as it were, to fix his own price. 
Experience has shown that ten families, in some of the states, each 
owning one hundred acres, produce a surplus greater than that pro- 
duced by an individual owning one thousand acres. And were it 
not for the inertness, not to say indolence, of the negro population of 
the cotton states, a greater surplus would, now be produced than 
when one man owned ten thousand acres and one thousand negroes. 
Indeed, under the slave system, the cotton planter was most always 
in debt to his factor for money advanced to the amount of his crop, 
before it was picked. When slavery was abolished, diffusion began; 
yet the aggregate production, with proper exertion, should increase. 
The abolition of slavery has already shown the retroactive character 
of this plan, by the division of large tracts of land into smaller ones, 
owned by numerous people, which were formerly possessed by one. 

Another objection to this plan has been advanced, viz., that 
capitalists who require large amounts of land for the use of needful 
manufactories would be deprived of a sufficient amount. 



13 

There might, perhaps, years ago, have been some reason in this. 
For instance, when iron was made exclusively with charcoal, the 
manufacturers required large tracts of timbered land for fuel, and 
also large areas for agriculture, wherewith to support their workmen, 
and horses, mules and oxen. But when the discovery was made 
that iron could be made with stone coal, (and this was not discovered 
until nearly all the forests had been destroyed) these large areas of 
land were not needed. Manufactories are now located where the 
railroads can reach them. A space for the works and workmen is 
all that is now required. If, however, it should become necessary in 
the future, in order to afford greater facilities for manufacturing or 
for other purposes, on lands now belonging to the people, undisposed 
of, there is nothing in this plan to prevent the individual from con- 
veying his land, renting it ; or, what would be perhaps more desir- 
able, entering into the co-operative system, and put their inheritance 
in as stock. 

If this plan should meet with favor, it might require many years 
to carry it into effect. But I think no more of the people's lands 
will be sold in large quantities to corporations or individuals for 
speculation, and this lays the corner stone of the plan. Diffusion of 
the large areas hitherto held by individuals is rapidly going on. 

Whilst providing a sufficiency for those not endowed, the right to 
a sufficiency for those who have paid Congress for the land they 
hold ought to be equally secured by appropriate legislation. Where 
persons who may have rendered important service to the community 
meet with misfortune, the government ought to step in, put a first 
lien upon enough of the estate to secure a support ; and in making 
such provision, the amount of the estate, and the former usefulness 
and dignity of the person, ought to be considered. 

We have seen the ablest statesmen in the country occupied in 
inventing schemes for regulating the volume of currency, and for 
providing to take care of a redundancy of currency. 

It is more essential that provision be made for regulating the 
volume of population and the redundancy that congregates in the 
large cities — the excess that are non-producers, capable of supporting 
themselves, yet live on what others produce. This redundant popu- 
lation — not needed in the cities, and unable to find employment, and 
whose support comes from the production of the soil — ought to be 
afforded facilities for taking their heritage in the soil — a sufficiency 



14 

that by their own labor they can support themselves. If it be said 
that there is produced and brought to the cities a sufficiency to 
support the population necessary to return an equivalent, and, in 
addition, support the excess or redundancy of population, then to 
produce and bring in that excess of provisions is a waste of labor, 
and a tax on the body politic. Now, if the way is pointed out, and 
facilities afforded the redundant population for taking their suffi- 
ciency, as , a right belonging to them, of which they can not be 
deprived, that will, in the language of Judge Black, " have a most 
beneficent effect in extirpating pauperism ; it will stimulate indus- 
try, and be a check to vice ; it interferes with no vested right." 
■ There is an attractive power that draws an excess or redundancy 
of population to the city. 

In order to preserve a proper equilibrium, there should be a 
corresponding repelling power to send back the excess. 

If, however, the plan Ave propose should be carried into effect, the 
power of attraction to a free homestead might become as strong as 
the attraction to the city. Then the two Avaves of population, in and 
out, might balance each other. 

The various pre-emption, homestead and bounty laws that have 
been passed, are encumbered with entanglements as to make it 
impracticable for many, as Mr. Greeley said, " to take up land and 
go to farming." There are comparatively few that could endure 
frontier life long enough to acquire the title of the United States ; 
and the attempt, in most cases, has resulted in the pre-emptor and 
soldier serving as conduits for conveying the title from the United 
States to the speculator. The pre-emptor and soldier, with home- 
stead swept away, go forth as much fugitives in the land as the 
Indian, except that they may vote. And the ballot, which enabled 
him to guard his heritage — his homestead — is no further useful but 
to sell. The best market is generally found in the city, where, by 
skillful management, men of genius gather a harvest in that traffic 
which furnishes a support from one election to another. But a 
support must come from the soil, no matter by what manner it 
reaches every individual. 

I conclude with the averment that no one is entitled to a surplus 
of a common gift, which will deprive another of a sufficiency, and if 
the averment be true, then that sufficiency ought to be secured 
beyond a peradventure. 



15 

In order to make the public lands, remaining undisposed of, availa- 
ble for giving every citizen, not already endowed in lands, a suffi- 
ciency ; that is to say, a minimum amount, which, with the co-opera- 
tion of his means for labor, will enable him to support himself. He 
is not entitled by heritage to a greater amount, nor will his endow- 
ment prevent him, after he gets it, from purchasing as much more as 
he pleases from a stranger. 

The amount of the endowment should be equal to all alike in value. 
The quantity will vary according to the quality of the land. In 
England, the estimate is, that one acre will support four men. In 
our country a more liberal allowance can be made ; a sufficiency can 
be given. The amount of the sufficiency can be determined by legis- 
lation, fixed by a money standard, and the quantity measured by 
that standard. One acre of mineral land may be equal in value to 
20 of agricultural land, and so on. The public lands can be marked 
off, and the lots numbered. The applicant can make his selection, 
and have his number recorded. This will secure his inheritance. 
He may then go upon it if he choose to do so. If, however, he prefers 
some other pursuit, the fact that his inheritance is secure, will in no 
way hinder him. 

In Prussia and Switzerland, it is estimated that the money cost 
of raising a man child from infancy until he can support himself, is 
1,600 thalers. In our republic the estimate is $1,500. 

When the American citizen has been raised to the age that he can 
support himself, his parents have added $1,500 to the capital of the 
state. Likewise when the emigrant, a full grown man, declares his 
intention to become a citizen of this republic, it is $1,500 added to 
the wealth of the nation ; it is a donation, as it were, of that amount. 

The report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, in 
1869, states the amount of increase of American society, by foreign 
emigration, from 1820 to 1860, to be 5,031,382, and the estimate of 
values brought to this country, is $68, gold value, per head ; and at 
this rate, the amount of money thus imported cannot be less, from 
1790 to 1860, than $500,000,000. This amount in values, and the 
money value of the emigrant to producers, is so much added to the 
national wealth ; a donation as it were. Now the only equivalent 
the emigrant receives is the right to vote. He should be allowed to 
take a sufficiency of the public land for a support — the minimum 
amount ; that, with the co-operation of his labor, he would have no 



16 

excuse for becoming a pauper. The person having no interest in the 
soil, has nothing at stake, and is not, therefore, a citizen in the full 
meaning of the term citizen. A state can not survive the loss of the 
citizen, nor the citizen the loss of his rightful sufficiency. The more 
assured the sufficiency the more assured the citizen to uphold and per- 
petuate the state. A citizen ceases to be such, when he has lost his 
sufficiency in the soil ; he has become something else and less. 



THE MONEY QUESTION. 



The first resolution of the committee recommends the letter pub- 
lished in the Daily Washington Chronicle, March 1, 1873, in which 
I gave a definition of money, and endeavored to point out the dis- 
tinction that ought to be made between money — the thing itself — and 
the use that is made of it. 

I asserted in that letter that money, when made by lawful author- 
ity, is a token of the sovereign power, and not a commodity. 

I append a copy of that letter in response to your second resolution. 

Money, to be valid, must have the impress or token of the supreme 
sovereign power of the nation upon a thing of substance in order to 
make that power tangible. But the power of the sovereign as 
expressed by the token is one thing ; the value and the uses that 
may be made of that power is another thing; and the distincton 
ought to be kept in view. The value of the sovereign power, and 
the value of commodities must regulate themselves by the rule of 
supply and demand, and the money token is no more a standard of 
value than pork and beans, as I will endeavor to show. 

Money is a legal fixed standard of payment ; and he who possesses 
the token of the supreme sovereign power — money, feels as independent 
and as well assured that he has a power which will enable him to 
discharge every obligation that may come against him in the way of 
executions, taxes or judgments, and that he can gratify his ambition 
in obtaining everything he desires, if that token is expressed upon 
paper, as on pig iron, or any other metal. Vide the decision of the 
United States Supreme Court in the Legal Tender case reported in 12, 
Wallace. Now, if we keep this fact prominent, that whilst money is a 
fixed legal standard of payment, it is no more a fixed standard of 
value for property or commodities than the property or commodities 

c 



18 

given in exchange for it. It is said money has a fixed standard of 
value. That is true only in regard to payment, but it has nothing to 
do with fixing a standard of value for property not in litigation. 
Supply and demand regulate that. Nor is it the representative of 
value other than the specified values that have been exchanged for 
it. To illustrate : the government has need, we will suppose, for 
pork and beans. How are those commodities to be obtained ? The 
government makes proclamation that the token of the sovereign 
power will be sold, and pork and beans received in payment. The 
vendor of the pork and beans determines their value, and the person 
who will agree to furnish the largest quantity of those commodities 
for the lowest amount, numerically, of the money token, gets the 
contract. If, in 1872, one barrel of pork was offered for $18.00, and 
a bushel of beans for $2.00, that fixes the value of the money token. 
But its value may be fixed in 1873 at one barrel of pork for $25.00, 
and the beans at $3.00 per bushel. The $18.00 received for the pork 
and the $2.00 for the beans represents the value of the commodities 
parted with for the token, but it does not fix or represent the value 
of the pork and beans belonging to any body else. 

The money token is fixed by law as a legal standard 'for payment, 
and as a power to be exercised in settling disputes. The people may 
carry on trade and commerce without using that token of the sov- 
ereign power, or they may use it as they please, but if they get into 
disputes, and the sovereign aid be invoked to prevent violence or 
injustice, the token of sovereign power will be used as the fixed legal 
standard for settling the dispute in some cases, but not all. If one 
obtains a conveyance by deed, which vests the title of real estate, the 
deed is as valid if the consideration expressed had been received by 
the vendor in potatoes as in gold eagles, but if the potatoes or eagles 
have been received by the grantor, and he refuses to convey the title, 
the court will divest the title out of the grantor, and vest the same 
into the grantee. But in relation to commodities ; the court can not 
deal with commodities, but will instruct the jury to ascertain the 
market value of the commodity as measured by the money token. 
Then the judgment and execution has a fixed legal standard, 
numerically, in dollars, and has power to transfer the title of the 
property of the defendant for the number of dollars; but whether or 
not the dollars have any intrinsic value, that is to say, whether or 
not any commercial value inheres in the substance upon which the 



19 

token of power is impressed, is of no concern to the court. The 
judge deals with power, not with values. The execution and judg- 
ment had a fixed legal standard of value for payment. They could 
be bought and sold, however, at any standard parties may choose to 
agree upon. 

When the judge enters a decree and orders it to be executed, the 
seal of the court upon the execution gives authority to transfer the 
title of the defendant's property, but that is the end of the power of 
the court. Then in order to extinguish the execution and judgment, 
the aid of the superior power is invoked. The money token is ten- 
dered, and whether that token be expressed upon paper of no intrin- 
sic value as a commodity, or on a material of the highest value, is of 
no concern to the court. 

The execution, with the seal of the court upon it, has power to 
transfer the title of the defendant in the execution, but none other, 
and it would derive no aid if the seal of the court was on gold instead 
of paper. The money token has power to transfer the title of any 
property that is for sale, and power to extinguish the execution and 
settle all disputes concerning property. But as said before, that power 
has no fixed legal standard for any thing else than for payment, and 
to be used for settling disputes ; and therefore I repeat, that the 
power of the money token is as effectual for those purposes when on 
paper as on gold. 

Now I will give the facts, which, I believe, will support the aver- 
ments made, by inquiring where the power resides to issue that token 
of the sovereign power called money. That token, to be valid, must 
embody or signify the supreme sovereign expression of the nation, 
be it a republic or a monarchy, for every nation possesses an inherent 
right to provide the means to relieve their necessities. 

If an army and navy is essential to preserve the life of the nation, 
the right and power exists to build a navy and to organize and keep up 
an army, and no one can question that power, and the right to provide 
all other means for the common good is as undeniable. If cannon 
balls and war vessels are essential, and we possess the material for 
furnishing a sufficiency, who has a right to interfere as to the amount 
or the material ? If money is essential, and we have the material, 
who is to prevent us from supplying ourselves with as much as may 
be needed ? who are we to consult as to what material should be used, 
or the quantity we shall make ? . 



20 

The power to make money — where does it reside ? 

The states possessed that inherent attribute of sovereignty; the 
power to make money, before they made a constitution, and exer- 
cised that power. But when they made a constitution, or charter, 
they surrendered the power to make money. That power did not 
die, however. The power to make money is by express words vested 
in the Congress by the Constitution of the United States, and in words 
as express, denied to the States. Now, what may Congress do under 
this express grant of power ? Clearly they may, by proclamation, in 
regard to money, express the wish and power of the nation. They 
can embody the expression of the supreme sovereign power of all the 
people of all the states by a token expressive of that power. The 
Congress can declare what shall be money, and can fix a limit to the 
amount. 

When the Congress declares as follows : " We, the people of the 
United States of America, declare this is one dollar, ten, twenty or 
one hundred dollars," or puts upon a thing of substance the mottoes, 
devices or tokens that signifies that declaration, the entire body of 
the American people are bound to assent to that declaration, and 
there is no other people or nation can call them to account for mak- 
ing such a declaration ; it is not a question open to controversy. 

Now, that Congress possesses the sovereign power to make as 
many war vessels or cannon balls as may be needed, the limit must be 
determined by ascertaining how much is needed, and the same rule 
ought to be applied to the limit of money. When the late war began, 
Congress increased the number of war vessels and cannon balls to the 
limit necessary and they increased the amount of money, not to the 
limit needed, however, as I expect to show, and in what they did, 
made very great blunders, as I expect also to show. But we will go 
back to the root of the matter. For what purpose shall Congress 
make money, and how does it get out into circulation, to be used as 
a power for transfering the titles of property ? The people of the 
United States, we will suppose, desire to erect buildings for transact- 
ing the public business, to build and keep up a navy, to organize and 
keep up an army, organize and keep up courts, &c. 

The Congress authorizes proclamation to be made that proposals 
will be received for material and labor. The people flock to the 
place where the work is to be let out ; contracts are entered into ; 
the officer is authorized to offer the token of the sovereign power (the 



21 

money token). The contracting parties agree upon the amount of 
material or labor they will give for a numerical amount of the money 
token. This agreement fixes the values of the token of sovereign 
power and the material, commodities or services given in exchange, 
and when taken in exchange for the values, it is the representative of 
the values for which it has been taken ; and whilst that transaction 
closes the contract between the government and the individuals 
dealt with, it binds nobody else to that fixed standard of value, 
unless there is a dispute to be settled, and then it comes in only as a 
standard of payment. 

The money token, in this way, goes out, we will suppose, in the 
first instance. There is no more given out than sufficient to pay for 
the values received. Congress has no authority to give out the 
money unless for value received, and has no just right to withhold 
the money after having received value. It has no just right to 
withhold payment for value received and put a lien upon the labor 
of the country and collect a per centum of the net productions of 
capital and labor to pay a semi-annual interest on a debt which they 
possessed the means to pay, and it was their duty to pay. The 
people who have the debt to pay, and are taxed to pay a semi-annual 
interest, which absorbs all their net earnings, have as just a right to 
demand that a tender be made of the amount due, and their labor 
relieved of the lien, as the defendant in a judgment or mortgage to 
demand that his property be released from the incumbrance after a 
tender has been made. But we will suppose the public improve- 
ments have been all completed, the army and navy established, and 
all paid for. Is there any more money needed ? Has that which 
Congress directed to be made and gave out for an equivalent put a 
sufficient amount into circulation ? If the population is to stand still, 
and no additional improvements are necessary, the amount in that 
case might be sufficient ; . the government requiring that the repairs 
and other expenses be collected by taxation, receives back sufficient 
to keep up repairs. 

But population does increase, and the army and navy and other pub- 
lic expenses increase. Will not the demand for money increase pro- 
portionately? When it became necessary, in order to save the life of 
the nation, the army and navy was increased ; so was everything 
else that was necessary, including money. But in this, I said, very 
great blunders were made, whether through ignorance, mistake or 



22 

design, must be determined by the facts as they stand upon the 
record, and as the facts I intend to give stand upon the record. I 
will state some of them very briefly. In 1862, the lower House of 
Congress passed a bill authorizing the issue of paper dollars as a 
necessity for carrying on the war. This bill provided that the paper 
dollars were to be as valid a legal tender as gold dollars, without 
any qualification. The passage of the bill by the House created 
universal joy and gladness over the land. The Senate refused to 
pass the bill as it came from the House, and amended it by providing 
that the interest on the government debt and duty on imports be 
paid in gold coin. The bill as amended became a law. The Senate 
amendment enabled the gold dealers to gather to themselves from 
the productions of labor a sum estimated by a member of the Labor 
Keform Organization (Mr. Groom, of New York) in 1872, at over 
one billion of dollars. The money that was issued under authority 
of that law, the greenbacks, carried upon their face a statement cal- 
culated to mislead, and did mislead. In place of declaring what 
Congress had a right to declare, " this is one dollar, ten, twenty, or 
one hundred dollars," it is stated, " The United States promise to 
pay ten, twenty, or one hundred dollars at Washington, New York, 
Philadelphia, &c." Promise to pay what at Washington or New 
York ? We all know that the greenbacks were carried and sent to 
New York and other places by parties who considered them in the 
light of an order to draw the money. Mr. Greeley, and others, called 
it a legalized fraud ; that a promise to pay money could not be money. 
The Supreme Court could not correct that blunder without inflicting 
distress and ruin on the people ; but the court did settle the question 
of power in Congress under the Constitution to make paper dollars 
that shall be as valid a legal tender as gold or silver dollars, and 
declared the greenbacks to be such. And now that paper dollars 
have been declared as valid a legal tender as silver or gold dollars, 
where is the sense of this eternal twaddle about returning to specie 
payment ? Specie payment, as commonly understood before paper 
dollars were declared a legal tender, meant legal payment. Now 
the word specie payment may be dropped out. Parties may make 
a legal tender in silver, gold or paper dollars. If one prefers to pay 
in specie dollars, their right to do so is in no way impaired to make 
a tender in paper dollars if they choose. 

Now having shown, I think, that the Congress, the agents of the 
sovereign people, have the power and the right to give out the money 



23 

token as an equivalent in full for all values received, and the limit 
is the amount of the values and services received, and that Congress 
can have no just right to withold the money after having received the 
equivalent. 

And whether or not Congress has a just right to withhold pay- 
ment by entering into contracts with the creditors of the government, 
whereby payment is postponed and a lien put upon the industries of 
the country that requires so much of the net profits of capital and 
labor to pay semi-annual interest and other expenses, as to bring 
upon the people the evils that afflict them so terribly — whether or 
not the Congress had such a right, certain it is, that the people 
oppressed by that lien have the power, if not the right, to repudiate 
such contracts ; and as the people became acquainted with the 
modes in which they had been afflicted by so unjust a lien upon their 
industries, they began to counsel together how to have it removed. 
It appeared from the records that the bonds had been purchased at 
an average of fifty-five cents on the dollar, and there were numerous 
instances where parties purchased $2,800 in greenbacks by paying 
$1,000 in gold. The $2,800 in greenbacks purchased a bond for 
that amount drawing interest semi-annually in gold at six per cent. 
In less than seventy-four months the purchaser of the bond received 
back his outlay in gold, and had his $2,800 bond on hand, secured 
by a lien on the industries of the country. There was nothing to 
prevent the people from removing that lien after five years from the 
date of the contract, either by tendering the amount due or by 
repudiating it. This course was strongly recommended by President 
Johnson and others. That is to say, they recommended that after 
the bond holders had received back their first outlay, payment of 
the principal should be refused. The National Labor Keform Or- 
ganization proposed, in 1867, that legal tender certificates be issued 
in sufficient amounts to pay the debt, and the same amount of bonds 
be prepared, bearing three per cent, interest interconvertible, just 
what Treasurer Spinner and Congressman Kelly and others now 
propose. 

But obstructions were immediately put in the way, so as to make 
it impossible ever to remove the lien by paying the debt, and an 
attempt at repudiation involves us in a war with European nations. 

In 1868, the chairman of the committee on finance in the United 
States Senate, and others of his party, proclaimed from the stump in 



24 

Ohio, that by the terms of the contract the 5-20 bonds were payable 
in greenbacks at the treasury building in Washington ; and in a 
letter he addressed to Hon. A. Man, Jr., in Ohio, dated March 25, 
1868, published in the Ohio Statesman, the following extract of the 
letter appears : " The holders of 5-20 bonds who demanded gold are 
extortioners and repudiators." The paper goes on to state that Mr. 
Sherman's information and ability gave him control of the finance 
measures of his party, yet no sooner was the new administration 
inaugurated than Mr. Sherman and all the republicans in Congress, 
with the single exception of Mr. Beatty, of Ohio, by the act of 
March 18, 1869, prohibited payment in greenbacks. That prohibi- 
tion was by passing a joint resolution, offered by the chairman of the 
finance committee of the Senate, entitled a resolution to strengthen 
the public credit — " Eesolved, that all obligations of the government 
shall be paid in gold coin." 

A resolution to strengthen the public credit ! To strengthen it 
where ? As a sovereign nation we were independent of all other 
nations. In our sovereign capacity we did not owe a dollar to any 
other nation. But the resolution passed, and has the same effect as 
a law of Congress. 

The next movement was a bill, introduced by Senator Sherman, to 
alter the contract made with the holders of the 5-20 bonds that were 
made payable at the bank parlor of our own treasury in greenbacks, 
which so changed this as to give the parties bonds payable in 
Frankfort, Hamburg, Amsterdam, London and other European 
cities, in gold coin ; not in American eagles, but in the gold coin of 
Europe, which is valued above the American gold coin. 

When the bill to change the contract was first offered, a committee 
of ' the Labor Reform Organization was in session in Washington, 
and sent to the Senate the following protest, which was also pub- 
lished in the New York Herald and other papers. It states as 
follows : 

Proclamation No. 1 — Sherman's Funding Bill. 

Washington, D. O, February 5, 1870. 
To the working men of the United States : 

We, the undersigned official representatives of the National Labor 
Union, composing upwards of four millions of voters, and in connec- 
tion with whom are involved the interests of twenty-five millions, of 



25 

the American people, invoke your attention to a bill now pending in 
Congress entitled " An act to authorize the funding and consolidation 
of the national debt ; to extend banking facilities and to establish 
specie payment," introduced by Senator Sherman. This bill con- 
verts the currency loan made to the government at the rate of fifty- 
five cents on the dollar, into a gold payment at the rate of $1 22 on 
the dollar. * . * * * It will appear if that mode of 
payment is adopted, there must be collected from the producing 
classes, during the lifetime of the bonds, and handed over to the bond- 
holders in interest, the aggregate sum of over $3,281,000,000, leav- 
ing the principal, $1,200,000,000 still unpaid. This bill is skillfully 
drafted, and exhibits the outcropping of the craft. If the draftsman 
had $1,000,000 for his fee, it could not be more dexterously fitted 
for the nefarious purpose. It must have had its birth outside the 
walls of the Capitol, for the features of the money -broker are stamped 
indelibly upon it. But whoever is its author, we pronounce the bill 
in the language currently used during the rebellion, " a public 
enemy. " Signed : E. H. TEEVELECK, 

President of National L. E. Organization. 
A. C. CAVIS, Vice President. 

Alex. Campbell, A. M. Puett, Jno. Magwire, Committee. 

It is also of record that a bill was prepared and read in the House 
of Congress by Mr. Keykendall, member from Illinois, on the 18th 
of January, 1867, House Bill No. 935, and again a bill was read on 
the 27th of January, 1868, by Hon. Sam'l F. Cary, member from Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio. Those bills were both drafted by a member of the 
Labor Reform party (Alexander Campbell, of Illinois,) and they pro- 
posed precisely what, is now proposed by Treasurer Spinner and 
Congressman Kelly, except that the Cary bill fixed the rate 
of interest on the bonds, to be interchanged, at three per cent. 
And again in February, 1869, at the request of the then President 
and other members of the Labor Eeform Organization, we prepared 
and delivered a letter to President Grant for his consideration before 
he made his inaugural, in which we demonstrated that if the Cary 
bill became a law, the entire national debt would be liquidated in 
twenty years, without taxing the people to pay a dollar of it; and 
we mathematically demonstrated that the reduction of interest from 
the government standard, six per cent to three per cent., would 

d 



26 

result in a saving to labor of two millions of dollars for each working 
day in the year ; and in that letter we also insisted that by a proper 
construction of the constitution, power is vested in Congress to do 
precisely what the Supreme Court three years afterwards decided 
Congress could do, namely : make paper dollars as valid a legal 
tender as gold dollars. 

Now I think the record exonerates the various Labor Organiza- 
tions from the responsibility of withholding the equivalent for values 
received by the government, and entering into contracts for putting a 
lien on the labor of the country. Those organizations, through their 
representatives, urged payment according to the contract as first 
made, and as is shown, protested against the alteration of that con- 
tract. An agent may make a contract that will bind both the con- 
tracting parties, provided he has authority. But an agent can not 
alter such contract unless by consent of both the contracting parties. 
Such an alteration would be void. Now, the protest of the officers of 
the Eeform Organization, representing over twenty-five millions of 
persons, must be conclusive that they did not consent to that altera- 
tion. Well, who did consent ? Perhaps none other than the bond 
holders, who number about forty thousand. 

From the various excuses and apologies offered for altering the 
contract, one might conclude, I think, that it was brought about 
by the masterly statesmanship of England, assisted by other Euro- 
pean governments, and those statesmen must laugh in their sleeves 
when they see that our American Congress allowed them to secure a 
lien upon our commerce and manufactures. Be that as it may, 
certain it is that our factories were and now are stopped consequent 
upon a money panic. Our merchants, many of them, bankrupt ; our 
laborers unable to find employment ; universal distress everywhere 
that drives men and women, who are able and willing to earn a sup- 
port, to demand charity. Are the American people to submit to 
conduct so terrible in its consequences ? Is there a remedy ? There 
is always present a tribunal, a power to which the oppressed can 
appeal. St. Paul, and other expounders of the code of ethics, estab- 
lished and inculcated by the Legislator of Judea, have enumerated sins 
that cry to heaven for vengeance, among which are "oppression of 
the poor and defrauding the laborer of his wages." 

We have seen that the Abolition party undertook to free the negro 
slaves from oppression and fraud. They had exhausted their powers, 



2? 

aided as they were by the pulpit and the press. They found barriers 
thrown around that species of property by municipal laws and the 
constitutions which they could neither break through nor get out of 
the way. Senator Seward came to the rescue in 1849. He sounded 
the tocsin that set the negroes free. He proclaimed in his place in 
the Senate of the United States, that u there is a higher law " than 
the constitution, and to relieve the negro from oppression and fraud, 
they were justified in leaping over the constitution and appeal 
to the higher law, and Senator Seward made that appeal regard- 
less of the constitution which he had just taken an oath to 
obey. 

Now if the white men are oppressed and defrauded, if no other 
relief can be had, will not an appeal to the higher law in their behalf 
be as justifiable as in the case of the negro ? 

But no such appeal is necessary for the matter in hand. What- 
ever may have been Senator Seward's views of the constitution or the 
higher law, we regard our federal constitution as being in strict con- 
formity with the Divine Law, and it guarantees " equal and exact 
justice to all, exclusive privileges to none. " We are the constitution. 
The constitution is owned by the people and they have the right to 
construe it. "The Congress shall have power to coin money and 
regulate the value thereof." Coin it of what? The constitution 
does not state whether it shall be of iron, leather, paper or any other 
material. Congress has made paper money and the Supreme Court 
has twice decided Congress has the right to use its discretion in 
regard to material. Regulate the value of money ! Congress can no 
more regulate the value of money, except to make it a fixed legal 
standard of payment, than to regulate the value of wheat, cotton or 
horses. He who is in possession of money, has it for sale or rent ; is 
as free to fix its value as one who has wheat, cotton or horses for 
sale, or to fix the rate of rent for it, as he who has houses and farms 
to hire. The owner of the token of the sovereign power (money), 
must be considered as much a vendor as he who offers cotton or 
wheat for sale, and has the same right to fix a standard of value, but 
no more right than the vendor of pig iron or lumber. 

Now that the Supreme Court has decided that Congress has the 
power and the right to make paper dollars as valid a legal 
tender as gold dollars, narrows the question down to how 
many dollars ought Congress to make ? Clearly a sufficiency 



28 

ought to be made. What amount would be a sufficiency? We 
answer, enough to pay for the values received and remove the incum- 
brance. 

Now who objects ? Not the parties incumbered, who pay the semi- 
annual interest. The principal, as now enlarged, never can be paid. 
But we inquire what is the amount of the incumbrance ? The 
mortgages transferred to European governments without the consent 
of the mortgagees, and for what consideration ? There appears on 
the national ledger, a bills payable account aggregating over seven- 
teen hundred million dollars, for which certificates of indebtedness 
have been given out. The 5-20 bonds have all become due and pay- 
able ; that is to say, the Congress reserved the right to tender the 
money at the expiration of five years, and the five years have 
elapsed. 

Now why not pay and remove the incumbrance ? We haye shGwn 
that the original contract has been altered. If the contract must 
stand as altered, the incumbrance never can be removed. The 
reasons given for altering the contract are various. But they are 
inventions as destitute of reason or logic as they are of scund sense. 
To return to specie payment is assigned. Well, the Supreme 
Court has decided that paper dollars are as valid a legal tender as 
gold or silver dollars. Is specie payment anything more than legal 
payment ? The paper dollars have the same fixed standard of pay- 
ment as gold dollars. Congress can no more fix a standard for 
selling dollars or lending or renting dollars, than fix a standard for 
selling commodities, renting or selling land. 

It is said that if a tender of the debt be made, the collection of 
interest would stop. Well, who would that hurt ? Certainly 
not those released from the tax. But the parties who would 
be obliged to accept their money would not be likely to find as safe a 
place to deposit or receive so high a rate of interest. That would 
likely be so. But that would be their affair, and of no concern to 
the thirty-nine millions nine hundred and sixty thousand who could 
not claim a dollar of the money. 

It is insisted that the parties having so much money might inflate 
prices. Well, who could be injured by inflated prices ? Certainly 
not the parties who received the money which is, and always must 
remain, a fixed legal standard for payment. 



29 

But foreign commerce. Well, what about that? Why, those 
persons who purchase commodities in Europe must pay in the money 
of Europe, and gold is the money of the world. But it is not his- 
torically true that gold is the money of the world. If it were, 
however, will the fact that we have paper dollars that are as valid as 
gold dollars be any hindrance to the purchase of gold dollars if 
persons wish to buy them ? But if our merchants and traders cannot 
find it convenient to go to Europe and purchase commodities, there 
are plenty of Europeans who will be too glad to bring their articles 
here and sell them for valid legal tender dollars, just as they now do 
for greenbacks. 

Then again, complaint is made that if the debt be paid there would 
be so much money go into circulation that the price of it would be 
greatly lowered ; that banking wouid not pay so well as if the 
quantity were less. Well, of course, the rule of supply and demand 
must regulate the buying and selling price, but that has nothing to 
do with the fixed standard for payment. But, as Mr. Greeley said, if 
people have farms, it is their business to find out how to work them. 
This rule will also apply to him who has a surplus of money. 

Then, it is said money should have elasticity — the volume should 
be regulated by Congress or Secretary of the Treasury ; provision 
should be made for a redundancy of money — to keep a redundancy 
on hand somewhere to be used for removing the crops. 

Now this means, I take it, that the government provide a safe 
place of deposit and pay interest on deposits (the money, not to be 
used, however) but ready on call when the opportunity offers to make 
a speculation out of moving crops or embark in any other enterprise. 
Now let us analyse the logic and justice of this proposition. We 
will suppose that Mr. Strong has a surplus of 1,000 bushels of wheat, 
100 head of cattle and 25 head of horses, and that Mr. Funk, both 
farmers residing in Illinois, has the same surplus of wheat, cattle 
and horses. Funk converts his surplus into $5,000. Strong 
undertakes to keep his stock through the winter, but has not forage 
sufficient to meet the grass in the spring. Weevil and mice nibble 
at his wheat, his cattle and horses are likely to perish. Has the 
Congress a right to levy and collect a tax for taking care of Mr. 
Strong's redundancy of wheat and cattle? Certainly not. Has 
Congress any better right to levy a tax to take care of Mr. Funk's 
redundancy of money? Another illustration of redundancy: We 



30 

will suppose Mr, Stewart has a redundancy of money ; he invests it 
in building houses to rent. He lets his houses to tenants at will in 
order that he may turn them out whenever a higher rate can be had. 
Is the Congress under any obligation to provide for taking care of 
Mr. Stewart's houses if he should loose a tenant for a time? He 
would have a redundancy of houses on hand if his tenants left. And 
this great question of providing money to move the crops. We have 
seen how that works ; we have seen the money hoarded in anticipation 
of reaping a rich harvest when crops are ready to be moved. We 
have seen the cotton planters pay four to six per cent, per month for 
money to move their crops, and we have seen banks refuse discounts 
to their regular customers, and hold up in order to sell or loan 
at higher rates to the manufacturers and producers. It is supply 
and demand only, and not the Congress, that regulates a redundance. 

Now, I have stated facts, I think, sufficient to show that very great 
mistakes have been made by Congress in regard to furnishing a 
sufficiency of money, and that no part of the responsibility rest upon 
the Labor Reform Organization. A remedy is not to be found by 
fault-finding or a recital of the blunders that have been committed, 
nor do we see a remedy in anything that Congress now proposes. 
The President, as usual, recommends a return to specie payment, but 
he fails to point out the way to do it. But we can tell the Congress 
how specie payment can be established, or what amounts to the same 
thing, " legal payment ; " and the mode is so feasible and so simple 
that, as our friend, Hon. Isaac Butts, of Rochester, New York, says : 
" it can be taught to an intelligent negro in one easy lesson." The 
bonded debt largely exceeds the money on hand. The lien upon the 
capital and labor of the country cannot be paid off unless there be 
money enough available to do it. 

The amount on hand that can be made available is readily ascer- 
tained. This will determine the amount to be made. Now, what is 
in the way to prevent the Congress from making an order to supply the 
deficit ? The material is on hand ; gold, silver and paper will all 
answer to make valid legal tender dollars, and these would establish 
specie payment, or if we use the words legal payment it is better, 
both signify the same thing. It has been decided, I repeat, twice 
by the Supreme Court, that paper dollars are as valid a legal tender 
as gold dollars, but that does not prevent parties from making a 
tender of specie dollars if they prefer to do so ; nor is such a tender 



31 

any more valid than a tender of paper dollars. And if there is a 
contract that calls for payment in gold dollars, gold dollars can not 
be collected unless the party to pay may choose to tender them. The 
court can only enter a decree for legal dollars, as if the contract 
called for payment in lumber or wheat. A tender in legal dollars 
will satisfy the judgment, an action for damages may lie, however,, 
for a breach of the contract, but the damages may be tendered in 
paper dollars, so that whilst legal payment may be enforced, specie 
payment can not be. The government enforces specie paymont on 
imports, but she does it by holding the goods until she gets the gold. 
If the goods are sold, greenbacks will buy them. 

But to come to the remedy. We propose to instruct our agents in 
Congress, not the present Congress. But before nominations are 
made for the forty-fourth Congress, the people to be represented will 
prepare precise and particular instructions, in writing, to be sub- 
mitted to the candidate, as to the business they desire to have 
transacted when they assemble at the National Capitol, and of the 
modes and instrumentalities to be used. The candidates will be 
required to subscribe to those instructions — to put himself upon the 
record. 

They may instruct him first to move for a repeal of the joint 
resolution, passed March 25, 1869, " to (professedly) strengthen the 
public credit, and that all obligations of the government shall be 
paid in gold coin." 

Next, that the original contract which made the 5-20 bonds 
payable in greenbacks at our own treasury be restored and put upon 
the record, as at first; and that the act of 1870, which changed that 
contract to payment in the gold coin of Europe and in European 
cities, be repealed. 

Next, that a law be passed directing the Secretary of the Treasury, 
or whoever may be the proper officer, to have made a sufficient 
amount of dollars to liquidate the entire debt of the nation, as the 
same may become due and payable, and that the Board of Syndicates 
be abolished. 

That the promises to pay, issued to national banks upon a deposit 
of bonds as collaterals, be recalled, and the bonds, if due, be paid in 
legal tender money. 

If we inquire wherefore is this debt of the nation kept outstand- 
ing and unpaid. Wherefore do we deal harshly with ourselves ? 



32 

Who are the parties in favor of keeping this incumbrance upon the 
people ? We find it is not the laborers of the country, who have the 
debt to pay ; they are not in favor of taxing themselves, and handing 
over a large per centum of their earnings to pay interest on an 
incumbrance that can and ought to be removed. 

It is not the farmers, who support all, and would have taxes 
reduced, with better markets for their surplus if the debt is paid. 

It is not the manufacturers, who would be likely to obtain money 
at rates as low as the manufacturers of Europe, which would enable 
them to supplant England in all the coveted markets of the world. 

It is not our merchants, the necessary links of communication 
between the producers and consumers, and whose sympathies 
become interwoven with each other, and is often manifested in kindly 
feelings which impels them to risk their entire fortunes to carry the 
producers over difficulties or misfortune. 

It is not the banks of deposit, who make loans to those that need 
money in advance of returns. 

It is not the patriotic citizens, who combine their capital to build 
railroads and bridge our rivers, and borrow money on bond and 
mortgage ; but when they go into the market find a first mortgage 
upon all the property of the nation, and part of that held in 
Hamburg, Frankfort, Amsterdam, London and other European 
cities. 

It is not the newspapers of the country. These belong to the 
people and support the producing classes, who support them. 

It is not the local state governments, who have no power to make 
money or emit bills of credit. 

No ; it is none of these that is responsible for keeping this 
gigantic debt outstanding and a tax upon the industries of the 
nation. 

The following notice appeared a few days ago in the newspapers : 

" House of Baking. — The record of the death of Francis Baring, 
chief of the great banking firm of Baring & Co., of London, which 
for upwards of half a century, has, more than any other business 
house in Europe, with the single exception of Bothschilds', dictated 
the financial policy of empires and kingdoms, and been a leading 
power in the monetary and commercial world." 

Dictated the financial policy of the world ! That would include 
the American Congress. 



33 

If we go into the office of any money broker from New York to 
California, we will hear the ticking of the telegraph, and see, in front 
of the cashier's desk, an index finger that marks every hour the 
figure which designates the price of gold and stocks. We find 
London is the standpoint from which the intelligence emanates and 
the centre to which all converge. Starting from London, con- 
nections are made through ex-Secretary McOullough and Jay Cooke, 
until it reaches the New York money broker, then back, passing 
through the American Congress, which, it would appear, forms part 
of the ring. 

The following appears in the Senate proceedings of December 18, 
1873 : 

" The Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Sumner) repeatedly de- 
clared before the Senate that every day we failed to redeem the 
legal tender notes the faith of the republic was broken; that we 
were lying; and that the country was deceived." 

Now, what can that declaration, made before the Senate of the 
United States, mean ? 

Eedeem legal tender money ! Eedeem it with what ? 

We supposed that legal tender money was the equal of legal 
tender money, and that when money had been adjudged by the 
Supreme Court of the United States to be legal tender money, no 
greater power or dignity could be imparted to it. Is the decision of 
the Supreme Court a lie ? 

The Congress, it would appear, wants to do something in regard 
to the money, but no two can agree about what shall be done. 

Congress has power, under the constitution, to ascertain how much 
money may be needed in order to relieve our necessities, and has power 
to pass a law which will authorize the amount needed to be made ; and 
when Congress makes money, they can declare that it shall be a valid 
legal standard for payment, and here their functions cease. Congress 
has no more authority for establishing a standard of value for money 
(except for payment) than to establish the value for a horse. Nor 
has Congress any authority for establishing or regulating banking. 
When Congress has provided the necessary amount of money, it 
belongs to the disbursing and receiving officers to take charge of it. 
The government has its treasury ample and well systematized. 

If parties wish to establish banks, they do so under the local state 
laws, and are regulated by state laws, and if Congress interferes 

e 



34 

with them, it does not derive its authority to do so from the consti- 
tution. Local banks for deposits and for discount, are as essential as 
merchants, and if they transact this business with lawful money, Con- 
gress has no right to meddle with them. As to the rate of interest 
or discount they may establish, it is a matter that only concerns the 
banks and those who deal with them. When one deposits money in 
a bank, he makes a loan to the bank, and he must be allowed to be 
his own judge as to the safety of the loan, and so of the bank ; and 
as regards the rate of interest the banks may pay for loans (deposits), 
or the rate the borrower shall pay the bank, is a matter that con- 
cerns the parties to the transaction and none other. The Congress 
forgets its dignity when it meddles with these things. Supply and 
demand would regulate that. 

JNO. MAGWIRE. 



LETTER BY HON. JOHN MAGWIRE, 



OF ST. LOUIS. XvdO. 



MONEY QUESTION. 



Washington, D. C, March 1, 1873. 
Hon. Bichaed F. Teevellick, Detroit, Mich: 

Deae Sie : I have been furnished with a copy of the memorial signed by you and 
other officers of the Labor Reform Organization, entitled "The True American Mone- 
tary System," and received your letter of 22d of February, requesting me to assist in 
bringing the memorial before Congress. 

Now, while no one can have more at heart the adoption of a true American 
monetary system and other means which will relieve American society, particularly 
the producing classes, from the evils that have resulted from the blunders committed 
by our statesmen in regard to the money question ; and while I have labored, and 
will continue to labor, to the extent of my feeble ability, to eradicate those evils, yet 
I can not see a remedy in adopting the plans proposed in the memorial. If that 
memorial had been prepared by the persons who proclaimed " that a national debt is 
a national blessing," I would look upon it as a cunningly-devised scheme for estab- 
lishing a system of government banking, which would for all coming time afflict the 
labor of the country with Mr. Jay Cooke's national blessing. I can take no part in 
invoking that kind of blessing upon the labor of the country through an act of Con- 
gress. I regard the true American monetary system forever settled and put upon 
the proper basis by repeated adjudication of that infallible legal tribunal — the 
Supreme Court of the United States. And I regard it a great misfortune to Ameri- 
can society that that important question — the question of the power to make money 
— had not been settled when the government was established. The power given to 
the Congress by the constitution, to establish a true American monetary system, was 
as well denned and as absolute in 1790 as it was on the 25th day of February, 1862, 
when the Congress, for the first time, directed the Secretary of the Treasury to make 



36 

paper dollars — dollars that should be money, and have all the legal property and 
powers of gold dollars. The constitution, in many of its articles, is somewhat in- 
definite and vague, and there was a time when there was doubt in regard to the 
power to make money, but that time has passed. The Secretary of the Treasury in 
1862 urged Congress to pass the law which authorized that oflicer to make paper 
dollars, and because the government was largely in debt for expenses incurred in 
carrying on a war to save the life of the nation, it became a matter of necessity to 
have money to pay the debts pressing on the treasury department. The constitution- 
ality of the act of 25th February, 1862, was in doubt until in 1870, when the Supreme 
Court of the United States unanimously decided that Congress had power to enact 
that law, and that the paper money made by the Secretary of the Treasury in pursu- 
ance of that law is money, and a legal tender for all debts, except those specified on 
the back of the money and contracts which specifically call for gold dollars. Upon 
this the judges were unanimous, but differed in opinion as to the time the law took 
effect. The chief justice and three of the other judges decided that the paper dollars 
made after the act of 25th February, 1862, were not a legal tender for debts contracted 
prior to that date. The other three judges maintained that the money was as valid 
a legal tender for posterior debts as debts contracted after the passage of the act. 
But the same question — the question of the power to make money — was again 
brought before the court for adjudication in 1872, when there was a full bench of 
nine judges, and the decision of the court of 1870 was reversed ; that is to say, the 
decision of the chief justice and three other judges, only, however, on the question of 
the date of contracts to pay money. The two newly-appointed judges agreed with 
the dissenting opinion of the three judges in 1870, that the greenbacks are a legal 
tender, no matter when the contract bears date. 

In the cases of Knox vs. Lee and Parker vs. Davis, reported in 12 Wallace, the 
court decided that the paper dollars made pursuant to the act of 25th of February, 
1862, " where there is an obligation to pay money without qualification are as valid 
a legal tender as gold dollars." And in the case of Tabillick vs. Wilson, reported 
also in 12 Wallace, it was decided that there being two kinds of money — paper 
dollar and gold dollar — " that a contract to pay in gold dollars is merely descriptive 
of the kind of money agreed upon ; that such a contract is as binding as a contract 
to pay in lumber or wheat." But repeat the doctrine in the former decision, " that 
a contract to pay in dollars, without qualification, is fulfilled upon a tender of paper 
dollars." In this case Justice Miller and Justice Bradley gave dissenting opinions. 
They contended that a contract to pay specie dollars is fulfilled upon a tender of 
paper dollars. There is a great deal of learning in the opinions delivered by the 
several judges upon the money question ; and it is stated in the opinions that eagles 
coined after 1834 were not money until they were authorized by law, and had they 
been coined without a law fixing their legal value, they could no more have paid a 
debt than uncoined bullion or cotton or wheat. 

Now, I maintain that those decisions have established the true American mone- 
tary system forever in this republic ; and whether or not the construction we put 
upon the constitution, in a letter addressed to President Grant at the request of the 
then president of the Labor lleform Organization, February, 1869, upon the question 
of power to make money, had an influence upon the minds of the judges, certain it 
is, however, that in February, 1872, the court came to precisely the same conclusion 
upon that question. 



37 

The power to supply ourselves with as much money as may be needed being, 
therefore, no longer open to controversy, narrows the question down to this single 
point, to-wit : How much is needed ? And I contend that this question is deter- 
mined when we ascertain whether or not the government owes more money than she 
has on hand or available to pay what she owes. If not on hand or available, then 
enough ought to be made to make up the deficit. Will any one contend that the 
Government may not pay her debt in that way, with money, with paper dollars, or 
gold dollars, the paper dollars being as valid a legal tender as gold dollars, unless 
there exists a special contract to pay in gold dollars ? And who will hereafter make 
such a contract ? 

Now, in the face of the true monetary system, established by repeated adjudica- 
tions of the Supreme Court of the United States, your memorial proposes that the 
government shall establish a scheme for a banking system that will, in my opinion, 
rob the labor of the country to carry it on. When we possess the power to make 
as much money as may be needed, and have the material on hand, or to be procured 
at infinitesimal cost, wherefore pray for the passage of a law to authorize issuing 
what you call currency, and bonds bearing interest to be put on the market. The 
words currency, circulating medium, specie basis, convertible currency, government 
"bonds, are slang phrases of bankers, that ought to be dropped out of our financial 
vocabulary. The word dollar means money, and money is counted by dollars. 
Neither of those words mean currency, specie, gold basis, or convertible money. 

"5 our memorial proposes to establish a true monetary system, as follows : " By the 
issue of a full legal tender currency directly to the people without the intervention 
of banks, and interconvertible at the pleasure of the holders with registered govern- 
ment bonds, bearing a rate of interest not exceeding 3-65 per centum per annum." 

Now, to what people a full legal tender currency is to be issued, and to what 
amount, or for what equivalent, is not stated. But I take it to be the intention to 
isfiue this full legal tender currency — yet do not know what is meant by the word 
currency — to an amount sufficient to pay the debt the government owes, and at the 
same time prepare and put on the market an equal amount in government registered 
bonds, bearing (not to exceed) 3-65 per cent, interest, leaving it optional with the 
creditor to take currency not bearing interest or a registered bond bearing 3-65 per 
cent, interest. Now, if that plan should be adopted, there would be two kinds of 
currency offered to the creditor — one kind not bearing interest and another kind 
bearing 3-65 per cent, interest — an equal amount of each kind on hand. Now, the same 
power that makes the non-interest-bearing currency makes the interest-bearing cur- 
rency or bond. Both are a lien on all the property of the nation, with power to 
transfer the title of property. If they be declared a ler-al tender, the interest- 
bearing currency would be preferred, and the non-interest-bearing currency left on 
hand in the treasury, unless it be used for carrying on government banking, but 
that would appear to be an uncalled for inflation of the currency. 

The memorial states, " All interest paid for the use of money, whether on public 
securities or private obligations, must in the end be borne by labor." This is cer- 
tainly true. Then why propose a money system that will tax labor to keep it in 
operation when we possess the power to make enough money to pay all public secu- 
rities bearing interest, that in the end must be borne by labor ? 

Now, we will state the situation of the cash account as it stood upon the national 
ledger in 1870 — it may vary now. There had been issued from 1862 to 1868, by the 



38 

government, bonds to the amount of $1,854,386,150. The government received for 
those bonds $1,235,879,416. Fourteen hundred millions of the bonds called for pay- 
ment in lawful money, and the interest in coin or gold. The bonds at that time 
were held, it was estimated, by about forty thousand individuals ; or, to state the 
case more plainly, that about forty thousand individuals have a deposit account, 
amounting in the aggregate, we will suppose, now, to about seventeen hundred 
million dollars, and they hold certificates of deposit. Or, if we change the figure of 
speech and call them bonds, drawing interest, the fact is not changed. Now, those 
forty thousand depositors claim, and legally so, that those deposits all belong to the 
holders of the certificates. And there are over thirty-nine millions of inhabitants 
who do not hold certificates, consequently have no deposits in bank. Now, what 
would be the effect upon American society if those deposits were tendered to the 
holders of the certificates, and they be notified that after a tender has been made no 
more interest would be allowed? A tender of paper dollars or gold dollars, according 
to the contract. Certainly the government would have the right to make the tender 
when the bonds mature, and has the right under the monetary system which has 
been established by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. The 
effect upon the thirty-nine millions who do not hold certificates of deposit would be 
to release them from paying interest to the forty thousand depositors, and the effect 
upon the depositors would be only to receive the money and cancel the certificate of 
deposit ; then the government would be out of debt (the government never should 
be in debt) and there would be an end of government banking. 

Now suppose the system should be adopted as proposed in your memorial. "By 
the issue of a full legal tender currency, interconvertible into bonds bearing 3-65 per 
cent, interest," as much currency as will pay the debt, and the same amount in 
bonds, how could the government ever get out of debt ? Would not the interest on 
the bonds, the salary of clerks, and paraphernalia in the end be borne by labor ? 

I have thus, my friend, briefly stated some reasons why I can not favor the mon- 
etary system proposed by your memorial. 

We contended in 1869 that the corner-stone of a true monetary system was in the 
constitution from the beginning, but it was never set until 1872, when the Supreme 
Court put it in the right place. 

Now there are objections to founding a system with the decision of the Supreme 
Court for the corner-stone. It is said trade and commerce will be deranged, prices 
will be inflated, the paper money will have no value, &c. Before answering these 
objections, let us inquire as to whether or not we all understand alike what is the 
true definition of money ? The thing itself. If we consult the dictionaries, we 
find that the men who compiled them have used words and phrases to explain other 
words and phrases. But those persons could not make facts, or alter them. The 
fact that money is a token of sovereign power, and that the value of the token is the 
measure of value that persons may put upon the sovereign power, seems to be little 
understood. In the abstract money is an ideal of sovereign power ; that power is 
not a commodity, it is not tangible as a commodity — it can have no commercial value 
as a commodity. But when the sovereign power is imparted to a thing of substance 
by a token of the sovereign, the token imparts volition to the ideal power ; the sov- 
ereign power then becomes tangible and circulates as a power in transferring the 
title of property, in facilitating trade and commerce ; has power to settle all disputes 
concerning rights of property ; power to extinguish a judgment. It is a token of the 



39 

sovereign power in the hands of him who holds it that enables him, by virtue of the 
sovereign power expressed by the token, to protect his life and property, and the 
sovereign will protect and enforce the power of the token in the hand of him to 
whom it for the time being belongs, in performing its functions, as absolutely as he 
protects the officer whom he has appointed to execute a death warrant, or the order 
of the military commander who transfers or takes the property of one and gives it to 
another. The power of the sovereign is as absolute in the money token as in the 
death warrant, or the order of the military commander when marshal law has been 
proclaimed. The value of the money token and the value of the death warrant and 
military order consists in the value of the sovereign power to protect life and prop- 
erty. Life is protected by the power to take life, property is protected by the money 
token. When that token of sovereign power is obtained by one he can transfer it to 
another, and both are left free to put an estimate upon its value ; that is to say, the 
value of the sovereign power in transferring the title of property. The commercial 
value of the material upon which the token is impressed constitutes no part of the 
value of the sovereign power or money. The token of the sovereign upon the death 
warrant, or the order of the military commander, have no greater value when 
impressed upon gold than upon paper. It has been contended that the standard value 
of the sovereign power signified by the token is the commercial value of the material 
upon which the token is impressed ; that is to say, the commercial value of the 
material as a commodity or as an article of commerce. The material may, or may 
not, have value as a commodity ; but sovereign power is not a commodity. The 
power of the sovereign is the will of the sovereign, whether the sovereignty resides 
in a despot or a republic. The will of the sovereign, when promulgated by a death 
warrant or the money token, is as absolute under one form as the other. I think the 
decision of the Supreme Court referred to fully sustains this view in regard to the 
sovereign power when expressed by the money token. Thus the value of the token 
is the value that may be put upon the sovereign power — the will of the sovereign 
people. The value of that power is not a commercial value, but the value of the 
power to transfer the title of property and to protect life and property. The value 
of the power — a standard — may be fixed by parties to suit themselves. But when a 
contract is made the token has power to enforce it — to take life and property if it 
becomes necessary. But an arbitrary standard of value may be fixed by the sover- 
eign to the token when he gives it out, and of course he never parts with the token 
unless he receives an equivalent, such as for services rendered or for property. But 
it by no means follows that the token of sovereign power is a representative of value, 
although it possesses power to transfer the title of any property in the nation that 
may be for sale. The token of the sovereign power, or money, is not redeemable 
by the sovereign. Money has power to pass the title of property, but money is not 
property — property is wealth, and wealth is active, and begets wealth ; money is 
inert, and begets nothing ; money is capital. The sovereign may conscript the citi- 
zen or subject, put him in the army, command his life, take property, or destroy 
property. The compensation to the soldier as to what he shall receive for his ser- 
vices or for property is a matter solely resting on the conscience of the sovereign- 
The sovereign may fix any amount he pleases, and tender to the soldier the token of 
sovereignty in such an amount as he pleases and discharge him. But although the 
soldier was obliged to take the token at an arbitrary value, he can not transfer it in 
that way. When he deals with a stranger the latter will have as much right to pu^ 
an estimate upon the value of the token as he who was obliged to take it at an 



40 

arbitrary value ; but whatever estimate may be put upon the value of the token in 
a commercial sense, its sovereign power remains fixed. The estimate put upon the 
value of that power may vary, but the power itself never varies. It is contended 
that the sovereign should exercise his power in affording facilities for carrying on 
commerce. But commerce is nothing but exchanging the productions of one territoiy 
for those of another, and is carried on by individuals, and must be left to individuals. 
The sovereign can exercise no more power in carrying on commerce outside of his 
jurisdiction than the individual citizen. But it is insisted that inasmuch as the 
money token when impressed on paper has no power outside the jurisdiction of the 
sovereign who issues it, and that the paper has no commercial value, therefore facili- 
ties would be afforded to the merchant if the token be put upon gold, which has a 
commercial value — a fixed standard of value. Such a policy would afford the mer- 
chant facilities for carrying the American money token out of the country in order 
to barter the material upon which the token of the sovereign power has been 
impressed as an article of merchandise, ignoring the power of the sovereign. To 
make money merchandise is to give it a quality that does not belong .to it. And 
gold being merchandise, it is of the wealth of the country ; it is, as has been shown, 
not money until the token of the sovereign is put upon it, and that token having 
the same power when put upon paper as upon gold, the paper token answers all the 
purposes of money, while the gold token may be carried out of the country to be 
bartered as a commodity. The paper token has power to afford all the facilities 
needed for our home trade, and enables the merchant to purchase commodities ; to 
barter with a foreign nation he can purchase gold as a commodity, as he does other 
commodities for barter, such as cotton or tobacco. Since the token of the sovereign 
is not respected and has no power outside his jurisdiction, the merchant can procure 
his commodities, and since the brand of the sovereign upon the commodity for barter 
adds no value to the commodity, the sovereign should look only to adjusting his 
own household affairs, and withhold his brand from being put upon articles of mer- 
chandise. It is his right to protect the individuals carrying on commerce within his 
jurisdiction, but when individuals go outside of that protecting jurisdiction they 
must take care of themselves, the sovereign has no power to interfere except to see 
that the highways are kept open and free. In regard to fixing a standard of value 
for the token of sovereign power — the paper money — that is left to .the people; they 
may put what value they please upon that power. But it is contended that the 
money of the world is of gold, and always has been. Well, we are not to trouble 
ourselves about what is or what has been. The assertion that the money of the 
world is of gold, can pass for what it is worth. Assertions are not always facts, and 
it is a fact that gold is not the exclusive money of any civilized people. All such 
use paper money and gold money the same as we do, and barbarous nations do not 
as a general rule, transact their business with the use of money. They barter com- 
modity for commoditjr. The world has been convinced that the American people 
are a self-supporting, independent nation, having ample and abundant resources for 
furnishing themselves with all things needful. There is a distinction between our 
theory of government — a republic — and a monarchy, that the people should always 
keep in mind. Wherever sovereignty resides, there government belongs. In a 
monarchy the government and the people are distinct bodies, as in ecclesiastics — the 
clergy and the laity. In a republic the people and the government are one and the 
same. But agents to perform the duties thereof are necessary, and therefore are 
created, say, a President, a Congress, a Judiciary. This agency is not, however, the 









41 

government, nor is there a word in the constitution of the United States which so 
denominates them. Hence the agencies of the republic, commonly called the govern- 
ment, are but a delegated body of men, and can not, in the very essence of their 
creation, transcend their powers without authority from their principals. If they 
do, their acts are void, and must necessarily be so, for the ballot is the only attribute 
of sovereignty which belongs to the American people. The people can, therefore, 
exercise their sovereign power through the ballot as they may deem it best to pro- 
mote the common good. Is it not, therefore, unwise for us to deal harshly with our- 
selves in allowing the prejudices and superstition that have hitherto prevailed in old 
countries, and in our own, in regard to money any longer to inflict the people, to 
oppress the laborer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the railroad companies, and 
especially the farmer, whose surplus productions support all others. By a wise use 
of the ballot all the evils which afflict the people, and are the results, in a great 
degree, of a wrong monetary system, can be eradicated. The ballot of the laboring 
man counts one, and the ballot of him who lives upon the net earnings of labor 
counts no more. The producing classes of America all have a common object in 
view — the pursuit of happiness. All are interwoven as it were each one, the laborer, 
the manufacturer, the agriculturist, the merchant are a component part of a grand 
system, which should work harmoniously, without conflict or antagonism. 

But, unfortunately, there is conflict and antagonism. Men strike, and although 
those who strike may be convinced that they thereby inflict injury on thousands, 
yet they strike. They appear to be instinctively conscious that there is a wrong 
somewhere. And when we critically inquire to find the wrong, its source can be 
traced to the unjust monetary system which prevails. It is, therefore, becoming in 
the sovereign people to correct the mistakes that have been made. The errors that 
have been committed through legislation can only be corrected by legislation. We 
may not look for a correction of those errors by the Congress elected in 1872. But 
in 1874, when another set of agents are to be appointed, precise and special instruc- 
tions ought to be prepared for the guidance of the agents of the people, and only 
such agents should be appointed as subscribed to those instructions and put himself 
upon the record. But there is another question lying back of the money question, 
which I regard as one of greater moment to the laborers of the country, and of 
greater national concern than the money question, and if proper steps are taken in 
time it can be as readily adjusted. It is the question of the distribution of the soil. 
By the law of nature, as announced by the founders of the government, all persons, 
of either sex and of every age, have, by heritage, an inalienable right to pursue 
happiness, and, as a corollary, an inalienable right to a sufficiency of the natural 
elements to that end, by the co-operation of their means for labor. 

The declaration of the founders, which assured to every citizen that inalienable 
right, a right to a sufficiency of the soil, the minimum amount necessary, as a right 
belonging to him of which he could not be deprived, either by his own act or the act 
of his agent, the Congress. In order that every citizen so entitled be clothed with 
all the attributes of a citizen having an interest — an individual interest as well as a 
common interest in the republic — at stake, and in order that every citizen could 
always have his heritage in the soil to fall back upon, that he should not be per- 
mitted to be a pauper, not only for his own sake, but for the common welfare. This 
is a question that our statesmen have not, it would appear, fully considered its great 
importance. I hope to have an opportunity to give my views to the Labor Organi- 
zation in writing upon this subject at some future time. 

I am, dear sir, respectfully, your obedient servant, JOHN^MAGWIRE. 



I am requested to republish a letter on the money question, which 
was published in the Louisville (Ky.) Ledger of November 10th ; 
1873. 



CHARACTERISTIC LETTER FROM JOHN MAGWIRE, A LEADING 
REPRESENTATIVE OF THE LABOR-REFORMERS. 
Hon. S. B. Chuechill, Louisville, Ky. 

My Dear Sir : In our frequent conversations regarding the money question, you 
insist that the definition we gave of money in a letter published in the Washington 
Chronicle, March 1, 1873, " is a novelty." Nevertheless, you appear to be convinced 
that it is sound, but hesitate to decide as to whether or not the plan proposed can be 
carried into practical effect, and request that I elaborate, for your benefit, the ques- 
tion more fully in its manifold details. 

The definition we gave of money in that letter was a definition of the thing itself 
— money — and not a definition of the use that is made of it. We stated as follows : 
If we consult the dictionaries to find the true definition of the thing — money — we 
find that the persons who compiled dictionaries used words and phrases to explain 
other words and phrases. But those persons did not make facts, nor could they alter 
facts. The dictionaries define a spade to be an instrnment for cutting and paring 
the ground, but a spade may be used for various other purposes. So may money be 
put to various uses, but the uses made of it 'may not be taken as a correct definition 
of the thing itself. There are certain powers which belong exclusively to the sover- 
eign ; latent powers that can be exercised whenever the occasion — the exigencies — 
happen that requires they should be used. The power to issue and execute the death 
warrant, to proclaim marshal law, issue an execution, or the money token are in- 
herent attributes of the sovereign. Whether the sovereignty resides in a monarchy 
or a republic, those attributes of sovereign power can be as absolutely enforced under 
one form as the other. They are powers that can not be delegated. The sovereign 
may appoint agents to execute the death warrant or execute the military order, 
which are specific duties. The execution, which bears the seal of the sovereign 
power, may be assigned during the life of the execution. The money token 'of sov- 
ereign power is, in the first instance, issued by the sovereign, and given out for an 
equivalent received. That token of power can be sold, parted with by one who has 
received it from the sovereign, without formal assignment. It may be used as a 
power to transfer the title of property ; it may be made a standard of payment, be- 
cause it has power to extinguish a judgment when there is a dispute which the sov- 
ereign is called upon to settle between man and man concerning property ; but it 
does not follow that the token of sovereign power — the money token — is a represen- 
tative of value. Persons may use that token of power as a standard of value and 
put whatever value they please upon that token of power. And although the sov: 



43 

ereign fixes a value on the money token when he gives it out to the soldier for 
serving in the army, or to the citizens who furnished the supplies, it does not follow 
that a stranger is bound to accept at any other standard than that which he may 
choose for himself. This was exemplified during the late war, when the soldier was 
tendered $16 per month in greenbacks and discharged. The sovereign fixed, as was 
his right, an arbitrary value to the paper dollars, but when the soldier offered the 
paper dollars to obtain supplies for himself, the traders put their own estimate of 
value upon them. The soldier was at liberty to accept the trader's estimate or re- 
fuse it. His necessities, in many cases, may have obliged him to accept the trader's 
estimate ; but if he had to pay revenue to the government, or to pay an execution, 
the paper tokens would be estimated at the value he received them. Will it be said 
that the soldier had as good a right to put an estimate, to fix the value of the money 
token as the stranger ? and wherefore does the sovereign derive the just right to fix 
an arbitrary value ? The sovereign has power, but has no rights. He can not be 
brought into a court of justice, but if he is a wise sovereign he will be a just sover- 
eign ; and whilst he has power to dismiss the soldier, and refuse compensation for 
services, it would not only be unjust but unwise to do so, and therefore he will fix a 
value upon his paper token when he gives it to the soldiers. He will tender to the 
soldiers his token of power, call it one check for one day's service, or twenty checks 
for twenty days, or one hundred checks for a horse ; or he may call them days or 
dollars, and he will tell the soldier those dollars, counting one for each day's service, 
or one hundred for a horse, will enable you to pay the persons who have furnished 
your family the amount of supplies which your labor could have produced while 
engaged in serving the government. If you owe dollars to individuals, a tender of 
those checks or dollars will discharge the obligation ; or, if you receive supplies from 
the sovereign or have revenue to pay, those checks or dollars will be received. And 
thus it is that the tokens of the sovereign power are given out for an equivalent re- 
ceived. They go into circulation and become tangible, not as a commodity, but as 
a power to transfer the titles of commodities. They may be used as a standard of 
value, but the persons who use them may fix the value of commodities as they 
choose, and may put what value they please upon the tokens of sovereign power. A 
may be the owner of extensive coal fields ; B is the owner of iron banks. A con- 
tracts to furnish B with coal ; B contracts to supply A with all the implements 
necessary for digging and transporting the coal and supplies for the workmen. They 
may use the money token as a standard for the coal and supplies. The trade may 
be carried on for a series of years without using a dollar of the money token. If the 
amount of coal and supplies balance each other, no money is needed by either party ; 
there is no dispute. If, however, they get into a dispute, and A claims that B has 
not compensated him fully for the coal ; that according to the standard by which 
they traded, there is a balance due from B to A, they can not settle the dispute 
between themselves. They therefore invoke the aid of the sovereign in order to pre- 
vent injustice or violence. The parties are brought into court. The sovereign — 
the judge — instructs the jury in the law, and directs them to find the facts as to 
which party is in the wrong, and to what extent, according to the standard they 
had adopted in their trade or exchange of commodities. The jury report that B has 
failed to furnish an amount equal to what he received from A, and according to the 
standard of values agreed upon, B owes A a certain number of dollars. Judgment 
for the amount is entered against B in favor of A and an execution issued to the 
marshal or sheriff, directing him to bring into court the number of dollars due from 



44 

B, and authorizing the marshal, in default of receiving the dollars, to transfer the 
right, title and possession of B's property to A. The marshal makes proclamation 
that he will, on a day named, by virtue of the power of the sovereign — the seal 
upon the execution — transfer B's property to one who will give the number of 
dollars specified in the execution. B tenders to A the number of dollars— money 
token ot the sovereign expressed upon paper. A refuses to accept it, alleging that 
there is no intrinsic value in the paper dollars ; that he will demand B's property 
unless he is tendered dollars made of gold, which have value as a commodity, equal 
to his coal. B brings the paper dollars into court and proves the tender. The sov- 
ereign — the judge — directs the clerk to recall the execution and mark the judgment 
satisfied, and this is the end of the law ; this settles the dispute. A complains of 
injustice, in this, that he could sell the gold dollars in a foreign country, and will be 
laughed at if he offers to sell paper dollars. The sovereign— the judge — will tell A 
that whether or not the paper tokens of his power have value as a commodity out- 
side or inside his realm or jurisdiction, is a question of no concern to him as sovereign ; 
that he deals with power and not with commodities, and that he will see to it that 
that power shall be respected within his jurisdiction, whether it be expressed upon 
gold or paper ; and whether or not the tokens of power deposited in trust by B 
have intrinsic value as a commodity is a question that A may decide for himself. 
He may accept it or leave it on file, but one thing is certain, that from henceforth 
A must keep his hands off B and his property. 

And this is the practice all over the civilized world. But the inquiry is made if 
the money token is used as a standard of value in carrying on trade and commerce, 
and has the same power to pass the title of property when expressed upon paper as 
gold, or to use the language of the Supreme Court of the United States in the legal 
tender decision, ''where there is an obligation to pay dollars without qualification, 
a tender of paper dollars is as valid a fulfillment of that obligation as a tender of 
gold dollars;" and since the cost of the gold renders it impossible to be obtained in 
sufficient quantity to make a tender for all obligations, and paper can be obtained at 
an infinitesimal cost, why not make as much money as may be needed ? and this 
brings us to the important question of how much is needed, and we are enabled to 
answer that question when we ascertain whether or not the sovereign has issued 
a sufficient amount to pay for services and property received or taken according to 
the standard he has fixed. Now if that were an original question, there might be 
some difficulty in arriving at a conclusion, but as the account now stands upon the 
national ledger, there appears upon the credit side of that record an indebtedness of 
over seventeen hundred millions of dollars, for which a comparatively few individu- 
als hold certificates, or bonds drawing interest. This fact closes that inquiry. There 
stands upon the record the obligation to pay. Then why not pay ? Let us inquire 
what would be the effect upon American society if that indebtedness be paid off as 
the certificates mature. If some call for payment in gold dollars, pay them in gold 
dollars, but the larger proportion of the debt — the 5-20 bonds — call for payment in 
lawful money, and a tender of paper dollars would be as valid a fulfillment of the 
obligation as a tender of gold dollars. (Vide the decision of the U. S. Supreme 
Court). Certain it is that if the deposits in the national treasury, now drawing 
interest, be tendered to those who claim them, and interest stops after the tender, 
the people now taxed to raise the interest would be relieved to that extent. So 
much of their net production as now goes to pay interest to bond-holders, could be 
retained by the producers, and it appears that the rate of interest paid for deposits, 



45 

or on bonds, is double the rate of increase by natural production of the national 
wealth. Now when the stockholders of a banking incorporation discover that 
their cashier has taken in special deposits, and issued certificates bearing a greater 
rate of interest than the bank is receiving, that cashier will at once be directed to 
tender those deposits and recall the certificates. The depositor may greatly prefer to 
keep the interest-bearing certificates, and may complain that if obliged to receive the 
money they do not know where they can loan it out for so high a rate ; will not the 
stockholders .of the bank tell them that is their affair ? Now, where is the differ- 
ence between the depositors in the bank and in the U. S. Treasury ? Will persons 
who do not have deposits in the bank object to the action of the stockholders, and 
insist that they should keep the deposits and continue paying interest, because if the 
depositors be obliged to take their money they might not find so safe a place for it or 
receive so high a rent, or the parties who owned it might inflate prices ? Now this 
is the objection made against tendering the bondholders the money they claim as 
belonging to them on deposit in the U. S. Treasury. But who makes objection to a 
tender of the deposit ? Not the parties who do not claim to owe the money, and 
would be relieved from the tax. It is those who claim to be the owners of the 
deposits, and those who live and thrive by dealing in money, buying and selling the 
money token, creating panics and making corners and by skillful maneuvering con- 
trol the money of commerce and thereby control the property of the nation. We 
hear those persons, in the face of the decision of Supreme Court, twaddling about 
returning to specie payment, specie basis, redeemable currency and convertible 
money — slang phrases that no longer have any honest meaning. But the day is not 
distant when those prominent financiers will be in favor of using paper doP.ars as 
the true American money, and they will then swear that they always were its advo- 
cates. We see that ex-Secretary Boutwell has abandoned the specie basis doctrine. 
We tell those advocates of a specie basis, that the man does not live, and the child 
never will be born, that will see the American people abandon railroads and go 
back to Conestoga wagons and stage coaches ; and as well expect to see a 
specie basis. No state of this Union will ever hereafter be permitted to violate the 
federal constitution by granting charters to corporations authorizing them to issue 
bills of credit to circulate as money. Nor will the federal government, after the 
session of the present Congress, ever borrow paper dollars and give bonds payable in 
paper dollars. Nor will another Congress be permitted to alter contracts without 
the consent of all the contracting parties, as was done by changing the 5-20 bonds, 
which were made payable when issued in greenbacks, at the counter of the bank's 
parlor of the treasury building in the city of Washington, for bonds payable, princi- 
pal and interest, in Hamburg, Frankfort, London and other European cities, and 
payable in the money of those countries ; then have the effrontery to say that as 
Senators and Representatives they represented and acted as the agents of all the 
people. While that is true, it is not true that they acted in good faith towards the 
people who must pay those bonds. When there is an obligation to pay money there 
are two parties to the contract — the payor and the payee. An agent may transact 
the business for both the parties, the payor and payee. He may have power to sign 
the bond that binds both of the parties. He may be instructed to alter the bond, 
but such instruction must come from both of the parties. The chairman of the 
finance committee of the United States Senate, in stumping the State of Ohio in 
1868, proclaimed everywhere that by the terms of the contract, the 5-20 bonds were 
payable in greenbacks, at the treasury of the United States, and upon this statement, 



46 

mainly, the election was carried by his party. If there had been doubt respecting 
the payment of the bonds in lawful money, as they expressed on their face, the dec- 
laration of the chairman of the finance committee of the United States Senate, so 
boldly made, settled the question. The contract was accepted and acquiesced in by 
the payors. Then by what right did the agents of both parties alter that contract at 
the instance of the payees only— the J. Cookes', the McCulloughs' and the Wall street 
gold ring ? That contract was altered for a purpose. The bonds had been obtained 
at a price averaging 55 cents on the dollar, and inasmuch as they were purchased by 
parties who were instrumental in breaking down the credit of the government, and 
had received back an amount in interest greater than their outlay, there was begin- 
ning to be a feeling of repudiating any further payment — the sovereign people who 
made the bonds payable at their own treasury, could, if they so elected, repudiate 
the debt so unjustly made and equity might sustain them. But if the debt could be 
transferred to another sovereign nation, and become the property of another sov- 
ereign, repudiation would be a cause of war. It could be conceived that as Ameri- 
can society had almost been destroyed for a time by a war among themselves, they 
would be appalled at' the idea of a war in which the governments of Frankfort, 
Hamburg, London and other European cities would combine. Be that as it may, 
certain it is that the alteration of the contract opened up a new field for Jay Cooke 
and the money dealers. If that contract had stood as it was originally made, there 
would have been no need of syndicates in London, Frankfort, Hambuig and other 
European cities, all to be paid for out of the production of this country. Nor would 
there have happened the recent panic, brought about by Jay Cooke's blundering. 
The drove of Texas cattle that stampede at the sight of a red blanket are more 
excusable than the money dealers in their stampede at Jay Cooke's flag upon his door, 
on the 15th of September, 1873. But beneficial results will come after this panic. 
The people are beginning to inquire, wherefore do money panics happen, and par- 
ticularly wherefore now, when the money is all good — no loss of money — and more of 
it in circulation than ever heretofore ? The people are beginning to inquire for them- 
selves wherein are these mysteries in finance which the money dealers only assume 
to know that others may not find out. And they are beginning to know that the 
money question, when stripped of the rubbish that has been heaped round and on 
it, is cleared away, it is a very plain question — one that every body can readily 
comprehend. The various organizations of Labor Reform, National Labor Council, 
Trades' Unions and Granges will be likely to unite upon the money question before 
they elect the next Congress, and they will be likely to write out precise and partic- 
ular instructions for the guidance of their agents before they appoint them, in regard 
to the business they desire them to transact when they assemble at the capitol. 
They will direct their agents to wipe out the national debt by paying it according to 
the contract. The people who produce the wealth of the nation, will take the risk 
of an inflated currency and high prices, which the money dealers look upon with 
horror. They will be slow to believe that wheu they get high prices, and paid in 
money that can never fail to be good, they will thereby be injured. "The other 
scare," — that the price of the money token will be reduced, that it can not be sold or 
loaned out for so high a premium as they can now obtain, and that there will be a 
redundancy that ought to be provided for. We answer that the low rate of interest 
will only effect those who live upon what others produce, and that the government 
is no more obliged to provide for taking care of a redundancy of money, in the hands 
of him to whom it belongs, than to provide for taking care of a redundancy of 



47 

wheat, corn, or the reapers and mowers during the season they are not needed. If 
one has on hand for sale 1,000 bushels of wheat, another $1,000 of the money 
token, and they part with the money and the wheat — transfer them to a third party 
for cotton or bacon — who is the vendor, and who the vendee? Is not he who sells 
the money token as much a vendor and no more a vendee than he who parts with 
the wheat ? There is ample provision for a redundancy of money in the develop- 
ment of our unbounded resources, and where, if invested, will contribute from year 
to year in adding to the national wealth. 

Truly yours, 

JOBN MAGWIRE. 
St. Louis, Mo., Nov. 3, 1873. 



AN ADDRESS 



BY 



HON. E. F. WINGATE 



ON 



AMERICAN FINANCE; 



ITS 



EVILS AND REMEDIES. 



SAINT LOUIS: 

THE R. P. STUDLKY CO., PRINTERS, 221 NORTH MAIN STREET. 

I874. 



ADDRESS 



At a meeting of citizens of the city of St. Louis, held at the Temple, 
November 7th, 1873 : on motion of Fleming W. Fariss, Esq., the 
Hon. John Maguire was called to the chair, and on calling the 
meeting to order, said : " We are here to hear discussed ' The 
American System of Finance,' a subject of vital importance to the 
people, and to me as a citizen, and to me as the Executive of the 
National Labor Council of Missouri of the deepest interest," and that 
he -now had the honor of introducing the Hon. Robert F. Wingate, 
well known as a faithful public servant ; whereupon Mr Wingate ad- 
dressed the meeting as follows : 

Mr. Chairman, and Fellow- Citizens : 

I am not here in the character of a partizan politician, but to invite 
your calm and unbiased consideration of a subject, closely allied and 
as is believed, vital to the welfare of the people and to the perpetuity 
of their institutions. A subject the imposing magnitude of which, but 
that I feel fortified in reason, and supported by developed facts, would 
deter me from an effort that will be confronted by an interested oppo- 
sition, intensified by the example of the mother country and practice 
of our own, long indulged in and submitted to, and hence pregnant with 
prejudices difficult of eradication. 

The history of nations which passed in review before the founders 
of the Republic, taught the veritable lesson, that governments, mon- 
archical, despotic or free, can not long maintain their functions or re- 
main independent of one another, without the sovereign control of the 
purse and the sword; and profiting by this lesson they so framed the 
constitution, as to vest in Congress the law-making powers of the 
nation, the power to declare war and to coin money, and to regulate 
the value thereof ; of which two essential and indispensable attributes 
of sovereignty the power to coin money and to regulate its value is the 
most vital. Money furnishes not only the sinews of war, but the safe- 
guards of peace. It is the great incentive to industry, alike indispen- 
sable to domestic trade and foreign commerce ; without it business 
must languish— die, and our land, consecrated to freedom, become a 
prey to the invader — commerce the builder, civilizer and beautifier of 
nations, will abandon our shores, and liberty itself will be lost amid the 
throes of internal feuds and dissensions. 

Money constitutes our medium of exchange, and the sole purpose of 
its coinage, whatever its consistency, or the material of which it may be 
coined, should be, to facilitate the transaction of the business, the trade 



AMERICAN FINANCE, ITS EVILS AND REMEDIES. 3 

and commerce of the nation. It has no other legitimate use whatever ; 
and such being its functions, it should emanate exclusively from the 
National government, in quantity commensurate with the business 
necessities of the people, and in character, or of a kind, adapted to the 
demands of their trade and commerce ; and above all compatible with 
their institutions. It should bear the stamp of the Nation's sovereignty, 
declaratory of its denomination ; and upon the faith of that sovereign 
impress, symbol or money-token, alone depend to give it credit and cir- 
culation. Like the nation, the sovereign impress of which it bears, 
it should be independent, wholly free from the control of the laws, cus- 
toms and practices of other nations. It should by virtue of law consti- 
tute a medium of exchange and measure of payment within the juris- 
diction of its sovereign creator ; and whether coined of gold, silver or 
paper, or of all of these substances, it should have imparted to it all of 
the qualities of money ; be the money of the people and for the people, 
equal before the law in the discharge of its functions ; a common medium 
of exchange, payable and receivable in full discharge and acquittance 
of all debts, obligations and liabilities, individual, State and national. 
It should be the hand-maid of labor, of trade, and of the producing 
classes, as well as of capital. Capital and labor under our institutions 
must stand or fall together. And that they may be co-laborers in the 
cause of our common country, they must have a common medium of 
exchange ; the interests of one can not be fostered at the expense of 
the other, without a sacrifice of the principle of equality, upon which 
their mutual prosperity depends. Equality, the bulwark of liberty, 
the birth-right of all men in the civil relations of life, the idol of the 
fathers, will not, can not be either established or perpetuated under 
our system of government or any other without a common medium of 
exchange. A two-fold medium of exchange : one possessing all of the 
qualities of money, a measure or standard of payment, as is our gold 
coin ; the other, paper currency, not having imparted to it all of the 
qualities of money, being limited in its functions of payment, and hence 
subject X.o the gold standard — has in the past and will in the future 
build up aristocracies, and augment the powers of capital, while it 
robs labor of its due rewards. 

This brings me to the consideration of our monetary system and the 
practice of the nation in the conduct of its financial affairs ; and wherein, 
as I maintain, the principal of equality has been departed from, and as 
a consequence burdens unjust and not to be endured have been entailed 
upon labor — the producing, mercantile and laboring classes, while the 
bond-holder, money-broker and exchange dealers have been not only 
freed from taxation for the support of the government, but have been 
installed pensioners upon the nation's bounteousness ; have been made 



4 AMERICAN FINANCE, 

sole heirs to the profits of the productive industry, trade and commerce 
of the nation. 

We have under the law a two-fold medium of exchange, gold, green- 
backs and the so-called national currency (silver need no longer be 
mentioned), of which gold alone is a measure or standard of payment ; 
greenbacks and the national currency the sole circulating medium. The 
greenbacks and national currency are both mere promises to pay 
money, they are not declared to be dollars, as is the gold coin, nor are 
they stamped with the money token of the nation as is the gold coin ; 
and hence are subject to, under the control of, and their functions lim- 
ited by the sometimes called money standard of the whole world — 
gold. The currency, dishonored and burdened with a precarious 
ever varying and ruinous rate of discount (the harvest of gold rings) is 
passed over, by the agency of the national banks, to trade and com- 
merce, to the merchant, the farmer, mechanic and laborer, and by 
force of law becomes their only attainable medium of exchange ; nor 
is this all, the wrongs thus imposed upon trade and the industrial pur- 
suits do not end here, as will appear when we consider the process by 
which the currency is brought into circulation, and the monopoly con- 
ferred by law upon the national banks. The banks are formed by an 
association ol persons who deposit with the government her bonds in 
amount not less than fifty thousand dollars, and thereupon receive in 
return, upon ihe faith of the bonds, in national currency, without 
charge or drawback (save one per cent on their profits, barely suffi- 
cient to cover the cost of the issue), ninety per cent, on the amount of 
the bonds so deposited ; and thereby become bankers, brokers and ex- 
change dealers ; empowered by law to charge and receive on loans or 
discounts interest at the rate allowed by law of the State where they are 
located. This currency practically constitutes the banking capital of 
the association, and is furnished by the government — the people — with- 
out interest or discount, while they, the people, are forced to pay to 
the association for the use of it interest on short loans at the rate, as 
the rule, of ten per cent, per annum calculated on the face of the cur- 
rency, and deducted beforehand from the amount of the loan. The 
whole of the national currency in the hands of the people of trade and 
commerce comes through the medium or agency of the national banks ; 
thus subject in the first place to the difference between currency and 
gold, as measured by the gold standard, and secondly, subject to the 
payment, in advance, of the interest authorized by law. It is not 
enough that the deduction beforehand of a percentage of this currency, 
termed discount, amounting to one-tenth thereof annually, in behalf of 
the agency or bank through which the currency is loaned to the com- 
munity, absorbs all of the profits of the loan — contradicts its very pur- 



ITS EVILS AND REMEDIES. 5 

pose, and perverts its issue to the benefit, not of the people who use it, 
but to the agency that distributes it ; but the loss — the amount of discount 
between the currency and gold, as measured by the gold standard, to- 
gether with interest on the same, must also be borne by the borrower, 
and that too while the people are taxed to pay to the banks the gold 
interest as it accrues semi-annually on the bonds deposited by the 
banks, and upon the faith of which the currency is issued to them. 
. The banks pay no tax on the bonds deposited by them. They pay 
no interest, nor do they suffer a discount of the currency issued to them. 
They are but middle men, who pass the national currency over from 
the government to the people, and yet, as authorized by law, they de- 
mand and receive gold interest on the bonds, upon the faith of which 
the currency is issued ; and with the gold so paid to them are empow- 
ered to enter the gold rings and speculate on the fluctuations of the 
currency passed over their own counters, and at the same time demand 
and receive ten per cent, as the rule by way of interest or discount 
from the community for the use of the currency, and thus the produc- 
tive industry — the labor and business ^interests of the nation are bur- 
dened with taxation to pay the gold interest on the bonds ; are sub- 
jected to the ten per cent, interest on the currency, and are compelled 
to bear the loss of the money difference between gold and the currency 
— while capital, freed from taxation, from interest or discount, is au- 
thorized by law to prey upon the necessities of the people. Is this 
41 equal and exact justice to all, exclusive privileges to none?" The 
legislation of no country in any age furnishes a precedent for such legal 
inequality, such injustice. Shall the industrial and business inter*, sts 
and pursuits of the nation — her patriotism, perpetually yield to such 
inequality, such injustice; can labor do so without becoming the slave 
to capital? Can the nation and her material interests prosper at such 
disadvantage? Why wonder under such circumstances that business 
languishes, that taxation is onerous, that our marine has been driven 
from the seas ; that even our mails are borne by foreign vessels ; that 
the laborer is rewarded with a bare subsistence, while capital is build- 
ing up its pyramids of wealth? It will continue so while the produc- 
tive industry of the nation is forced to pay to capital the tribute now 
imposed by law. 

Why, then, I ask — why reason and justice demand — should the people 
submit to such unparalleled inequality? Does the general welfare 
require the sacrifice? Must the many toil on, burdened with taxation, 
interest and discount, that the banker, bond-holder and exchange dealer 
may enjoy luxury and power? In the name of the Republic and her 
benign promises, I answer, No ! Nor is this all. The principal of a 
large portion of our national debt, evidenced by our five-twenty bonds, 



D AMERICAN FINANCE, 

as expressed on their face, was made payable in the lawful money of the 
United States, and are now payable at the option of the government, 
for instance in greenbacks, and not necessarily either in gold or silver 
coin, as was ably and patriotically maintained by the lamented Stephens, 
who had more to do with their authorization than any of his compeers, 
and the memory of whose deeds as the acknowledged leader in Con- 
gress during the bloody ordeal of the war, will remain canonized in 
the American heart while equality remains the watchword of Union 
and liberty ; no, the story of wrongs does not end here, but at the bid- 
ding of capital ; at the bidding of gold-rings, as counseled by J. Cooke 
and under the leadership of Senator Sherman, of Ohio, as provided by 
the Syndicate policy with the specious pretense of maintaining the 
nation's honor (thus filching the livery of Heaven to serve the Father 
of lies in) our bonds payable in the lawful money of the United States, 
and at the option of the government ; our five-twenty's must be con- 
verted into long bonds, thirty-year bonds, to be negotiated in Europe, 
thereby requiring that the whole of the principal of the national debt, 
as well as the interest, shall be paid in gold, which means a debt in 
perpetuity, never to be paid, but from time to time, through centuries, 
to be funded and again funded ; the interest in the meantime to be paid 
in gold as it accrues, every three months, and at foreign counters. 

A financial policy, which involves a hazardous departure from the 
advice of the father of his country, to avoid all entangling alliances 
with other nations. A policy which will prove, if carried out, a sur- 
render of the nation's purse strings — a surrender of the control of our 
monetary affairs to the monarchies of the Old World, and in the near 
future result in America becoming a mere tributary power to her for- 
eign creditors. Carry out the syndicate policy, and continue gold the 
chief measurer of payment, and by reason of the known insufficiency 
of gold in amount, continue to authorize as is now provided by law, 
the emission of paper promises to pay money for the uses of trade — 
the transaction of the business of the people, and as assuredly as that 
England, from whence the system was derived, has her extremes of 
wealth and of poverty — her aristocracy and degraded poor — time will 
develop in America an aristocracy no less exacting and overshadow- 
ing — a vassalage, no less hopeless and degraded. Like causes will 
produce like results. The pillars of the throne of England are embed- 
ded in her monetary system, and if we would preserve our equality, 
the corner-stone of the Republic, we should shun instead of following 
her example. 

The fertility of our soil, our country's boundless resources ; the vast 
extent of our un-appropriated public domain, may postpone the ca- 
lamity. Our love of country, of liberty and peace, which have en- 



ITS EVILS AND REMEDIES. 7 

abled us to withstand all assaults from without, and even endure and 
survive the test of a most blood}^ and determined civil war, may and 
will stimulate our endurance, but as certain as that the concentration 
of wealth and the centralization of powers, in the few in exclusion of 
the great body of the people, developed that corruption which robbed 
ancient Rome of the imperial sceptre, and enveloped her in dreary 
darkness, the day of our calamity will come. Oui ruin is fore- 
shadowed in her fall. Here as there, in this, as in that age, unless we 
heed the voice of reason and of justice, and thus shun the rock on 
which other nations, not our inferiors, have ., le to ruin, capital and 
labor, the rich and the poor, the high official and the humble toiler, 
will meet a common doom beneath the ruins of the Republic. 

This is no mere ideal portrayal of our possible future. The cor- 
ruptions of the hour, the rapid concentration of wealth, the thirst for 
political power not surpassed in any age, and which sets at defiance 
every principle of honor and of honesty ; the prostrating burdens that 
are being imposed upon the people ; the improvident, unjust and 
partial legislation of our times ; the exclusive privileges conferred upon 
corporate monopolies, wide spread discontent and loss of confidence 
and the deep toned and well-founded murmurings of the people, in 
the light of history stamp it with verity. 

As yet, however, we are not without hope ; the pathway of our de- 
liverance is not entirely obscure, and, before our culminating wrongs 
shall have driven the nation to despair, before the crowned heads of 
Europe may in triumph point to America as a bleeding witness of 
man's incapacity for self government ; while yet they may, it behooves 
the people, all who would perpetuate our institutions, to rally to the 
rescue ; re-assert and as a band of patriot brothers vindicate that sentiment 
which gave victory to the Revolution and life to the Republic, "equal 
and exact justice to all, exclusive privileges to none." Equality is the 
soul of the Republic. Upon this rock, and none other, may she built 
an asylum for the down-trodden of nations. 

We feel and know that the products of labor constitute our national 
wealth, and that they are bought and sold through the medium of 
money, and we realize that thus money becomes the controlling power, 
in the transaction of our business, trade and commerce ; and that as 
this power is exerted, the interests of labor will be fostered or injuri- 
ously effected ; and we feel and know, that the productive industry of 
the country is languishing, while capital is becoming concentrated and its 
powers and profits daily augmented ; and yet, in the hurrying race of 
life, rushing through the avenues of trade, frantic over the loss of 
their just rewards, the votaries of labor heed not, that while they are 
following the plow, gathering their harvests, feeding their herds, toil- 



8 AMERICAN FINANCE, 

ing in our factories, workshops, and store-houses, braving the dangers 
of the seas and of domestic commerce, to secure a sufficiency and add 
to the wealth of the nation, capital is in the political caucus, in the 
nominating convention ; controlling the elections, crowding the fetid 
lobbies of our representative assemblies, state and national ; moulding 
and shaping legislation ; until now, exempted from taxation and all of 
the burdens of government, its votaries, the denizens of Wall street, the 
bond holder and exchange dealer — -clasping to their bosoms our non- 
taxed, gold bearing bonds, intrenched behind our national debt, wield- 
ing corporate monopolies, clothed with the powers of the gold standard 
of payment, and the sceptre of the currency, are fast becoming the sole 
recipients of the profits of labor and commercial industry of a nation 
of forty millions of people. 

Call it interest, discount, taxation, the results to the community are 
the same. Immaterial whether the wealth of a people is periodically 
abstracted by tax-gatherers or swallowed up by overpowering capital- 
ists, gold-rings, bond-holders, money-brokers and exchange dealers, 
the loss is similar and the wrong done equally exhaustive of the ener- 
gies of a nation and as potential of ruin to a Republic. 

The American is hardy, so was the Roman. The American is pro- 
gressive, so was the Roman. The American gathers harvests of wealth, 
so did the Roman. The American is courageous in battle and noble 
in council, so was the Roman, and stood the shield, and shielded by 
his imperial city, the mistress of the world for centuries, and yet the 
Roman and his imperial city, with all his prowess, and all her mag- 
nificence and power, were forced at last to yield to the destroyer of 
nations — oppressive taxation. Can America hope to withstand the 
assaults of this destroyer, and escape a like fate? The Roman knew 
nothing of corporate monopolies, and being taxed in corporate behalf, 
he was protected by law from the insatiate demands of the usurer. 
His government at no time outraged her citizens by delegating to a 
corporate body of ursurers the sovereign power of dispensing the 
medium of the exchange of her trade and commerce, and exacting 
interest or discount therefor, as is done in the American Republic. 
Such a surrender of national authority was inaugurated by the English 
Monarchy about the close of the seventeenth century, and done to in- 
crease the power of her aristocracy, and thus strengthen the pillars of 
her throne. 

Take away this discount in England and her monied aristocracy will 
dissolve. Relieve Our productive industry of the interest, the discount 
and money difference imposed by law and incident to our twofold 
medium of exchange, and in lieu of the greenback and national cur- 
rency ; issue paper dollars, having all the powers of money, and thus 



ITS EVILS AND REMEDIES. 9 

furnish to trade a medium of circulation that shall be a measure or 
standard of payment so that gold in the hands of capital shall not be 
the controlling standard or measure of payment, and the profits of labor 
that are now swallowed up by the money broker and exchange dealer 
will accrue to and be enjoyed by the producer, who is entitled to them ; 
and the gold rings, in the commercial capital of the nation, which 
keep the National Treasury in perpetual seige and alarm, will be 
broken up, and gold seek investment in the growth of our cities and in 
the developement of our national resources, instead, as now, of en- 
abling the law favored usurer to absorb all of the profits of labor. 
Our monetary system is neither advantageous to the government nor 
just to the people. 

In justice then, in the name of the Republic, of its fundamental 
rule of civil equality, abrogate the law that usurps the august functions 
of popular government, and which authorizes, in behalf of a few 
thousand men, a deduction of so large a portion of the products of the 
wealth of our people. A law that absolutely prohibits the accumula- 
tion of the capital that belongs to labor, as its surplus earnings, by 
every form of device, whereby the great producer obtains but a bare 
means of subsistence ; the overplus ot his industry — his capital, being 
absorbed before hand by the insidious discount of usury — a tribute to 
capital inflicted upon and enforced against the importers of cargoes, 
the manufacturer, the mechanic and farmer, all of whom are victims to 
this insatiate taxation ; and the merchant by adding the interest or dis- 
count to the cost of his merchandise, is compelled to hand down the 
oppression to the community that trade with him ; he is not only the 
victim of interest or discount himself in the first instance, but he is 
made an engine of the law, to inflict it upon others, through every 
class and grade of society all, all are subject to its visitation. Every 
ocean bound vessel that outrides the storm, every steamer that runs the 
hazards of our inland seas with their cargoes ; the construction, 
equipment and cost of operating railroads with their freight of the 
products of labor or of human beings, pays this wasting tribute. Every 
transaction in your commercial exchange has this insidious process 
gnawing at its vitals. Night and day, in this wide extended Republic, 
this currency is circulating as the people's medium of exchange, and 
imposing the weight of these insupportable burdens of interest and 
discount — prolific of panics, suspensions, insolvencies, bankruptcies, 
gold-gamblings, loans, debts, tariffs, taxation, and an incongruous 
mass of vicious legislation in the way of funding bills, all sequents of 
a borrowed money policy, aided by our twofold medium of exchange 
having unequal money powers, and by reason of which millions of 
men engaged in the industrial pursuits have been strewn before it in 



IO AMERICAN FINANCE, 

the dust hurled down like a forest before a sweeping storm ; nor does 
it pause to mark the fall of its victims, but speeds on in its mission of 
ruin — a necessity 'to all, yet ruining all who may, by stress of business, 
be driven within the scope of its devouring effects. 

Such results should startle meii who have at heart the welfare of this 
nation. — Results that would overpower any other nation than this 
superabundant Republic. — Results which should satisfy a congress of 
representative patriots that their legislation therein has been destructive 
of that equality and diffusion of powers and privileges without which 
we must sooner or later cease to be a free people. — Results that point 
with unerring certainty to the cause of the languishing condition of 
our trade and commerce, and in unmistakable language account 
for capital realizing all of the profits of the productive industry 
of the country. — Results that challenge the patriotic interposition of all 
who would vindicate the civil equality of men, and make America 
an asylum for her own oppressed people, while it is claimed that she 
is the asylum of the oppressed of all nations. — Results that plead for 
and argue the cause of reforms that will stay the hand of oppressive 
taxation, that will relieve the great body of the people from a bank- 
rupting rate of interest and discount, that will dispel the gloom now 
clouding our country's future, and reanimate us in the love of the 

" Land of the pilgrim's piide, 

Land where our fathers died."' 

Reforms that will sweep away the evils of our monetary system, 
and that mass of improvident, unjust and partial legislation, state and 
national, that has proved so prolific of a bonded indebtedness, of 
corporate monopolies, land grants, gold-rings, wide-spread corruption 
and inequality that are making such manifest inroads upon our national 
pride and love of country, that are blighting and withering the great 
American heart ; that are tearing away and trampling under foot, one 
by one, and in rapid succession, the supports of our freedom ; that are 
stealthily robbing us of our confidence in man's capacity for self-govern- 
ment and filling our minds with gloomy forebodings for our country's 
future ; that are actually shrouding liberty for its burial beneath the heel 
of a monied aristocracy. Reform 5 !, plain, practicable, just and consti- 
tutional, lodged with the people — the source of all power, who may 
and of right under the constitution wield the sceptre of the nation's 
sovereignty. Reforms that will inspire hope, restore confidence and 
re-establish civil equality. Reforms that are available, if the people 
will but cast away pre-conceived opinions and prejudices, founded 
more on custom than in reason, and array themselves in antagonism to 
the centralization of wealth and power, to all monopolies and grants 
of exclusive privileges, and above all to a money policy, a two-fold 



ITS EVILS AND REMEDIES. II 

medium of exchange which was fastened on the young Republic soon 
after it rose from its baptism of blood and from thence to this hour has 
contributed to the establishment of a monied aristocracy, wholly in 
conflict with the principles upon which' the fathers founded their declar- 
ation of independence — a money system which has in the fullness of 
its fruition, in the last twelve years, dwarfed our marine, driven our 
merchantmen from the seas, converted our standard of payment, gold, 
into a commodity, a thing of mere bargain and sale, made an usurer, 
a monopoly of capital, which, by means of the power of discount with 
which the law has clothed it, has enslaved the productive industry of 
the nation and made it, tributary to its inexorable demands, to an ex- 
tent so exhaustive that nothing but the forbearance, the patriotism, of 
the American people could stay the red hand of revolution, that could, 
under the whip and spur of our wrongs, say, " let us have peace." 

Be not deceived, our safety, politically and financially, lies in re- 
formatory measures to be effectuated through national statutes ; capital 
will never yield to an equality with labor, but, in the hope of enjoying the 
luxury and powers incident to an aristocracy, would rather that liberty 
should die. Hence the task of patriotism is great ; indeed, when we 
look in upon our national assembl} 7 , our representative agency, and 
witness the artful schemings of capital brought to bear through that 
instrumentality, and reflect that our national debt mounts up to billions, 
that it is in the hands of capital, secured by non-taxed gold bearing 
bonds, it would seem overwhelming, hopeless. But, thanks to the 
wisdom of our institutions, the sovereignty of the nation begins and 
ends with the people, who may, through the ballot, control its destiny ; 
and if the people will but prove true to themselves, to justice, to the 
cause of liberty and mankind, they will, through that instrumentality, 
work out a peaceful solution of our country's ills, and bring about an 
equitable distribution between capital and labor of the profits of pro- 
duction, and make them as they should be, co-laborers in the cause of 
our common country. 

Reformatory measures, like all other classes of legislation, should be 
reasonable and just, and I propose suggesting none other. 

Our Union was in peril, and to save it intact and preserve the 
nation's life, armies had to be mustered and maintained in the field. 
Our revenues, being on a peace basis, were inadequate. Loans were 
resorted to, and to secure payment, our bonds, with interest coupons 
attached, were thrown upon the market and disposed of at a ruinous 
discount — the inevitable result of the nation being at the mercy of 
capital under a borrowed money policy. A national debt, scarcely 
within human comprehension, was created (the feast of capital, and, 
as it has proved, enervating burden cast upon the people — the laboring 



12 AMERICAN FINANCE, 

classes — who, amid blood and carnage, rallied to the support of the 
Union, while capital enjoyed its coveted feast). The debt should be 
paid at the earliest moment possible, and as " denominated in the bond." 
Good faith requires this. And in peace, as in war, the nation's hope, 
those who toil must and will rally to the support of the nation's honor. 
At the same time they should demand that good faith shall be observed 
towards them. The products of labor have been and are taxed — ex- 
haustively taxed — while the bonds, the fund of capital, have been and 
are exempt from all taxation, municipal, state and national. The ex- 
emption was promised, is a part of the law of the contract, and so 
made in order to draw capital from its concealment — the price of its 
patriotism. Keep the promise, however unjust the consideration. 

The bonds made payable in gold should be so paid, together with 
the interest thereon, And thus adhering to the contract on their part, 
the people should require that the contract shall be observed on the 
part of the bondholder ; that is, that the bonds made payable in the 
lawful money of the United States, our five-twenties, shall be paid in 
lawful money, and not necessarily in either gold or silver coin, and at 
the earliest option of the Government. That there shall be no further 
funding of the public debt, which will, in any way, increase the 
gold bearing or other non-taxed obligations of the nation, but that 
our bonds shall be called in and paid, as the ability of the nation 
will justify, to the end that the interest may be stopped. 

That the burdens of the public debt, so far as may be possible and 
consistent with the law of the contract, shall be so managed as to bear 
equally on all classes and interests. 

That our financial s}'stem and revenue laws shall be so framed and 
administered that capital shall bear an equal proportion of the burdens 
created by the war, and no longer, by reason of that calamity, and by 
means of unjust discrimination should continue to enslave labor. 

That the Government shall issue no more money of the nature of 
mere promises to pay money, or currency, its powers to be measured 
by a gold standard, or authorize or permit it to be done by others ; 
but in lieu thereof the Government alone, and without any intervening 
agency, should issue paper dollars, having all of the powers or qualities 
of money for a circulating medium. That there shall be no further 
foreign loans negotiated on the part of the government — a debtor 
without the means of payment is and must remain subject to his 
creditor ; as well return to England our independence as to surrender 
to her the keys of our Treasury. The syndicate policy, so-called, can 
prove nothing else than a curse to the nation. To have exempted from 
taxation the capital invested in our bonds, in behalf of home capital, 
was unjust. But to convert the whole of the public debt, enormous as 



ITS EVILS AND REMEDIES. 13 

it is, into non-taxed gold bearing bonds and to negotiate them in foreign 
governments, as contempted by the syndicate policy, would be a crime 
beyond compare. 

If labor is to be the pack horse, the hewer of wood and drawer of 
water for capital, let it be for home capital. We should not go within 
the jurisdiction of monarchs to choose our masters — our public obli- 
gations should not be permitted to pass bayond the control of the 
nation's laws. 

If the people are to be burdened with taxation, and the profits of 
productive industry taken to discharge our public obligations, the 
common welfare requires that they should be paid to our own citizens ; 
and by thus augmenting the subjects of taxation, lessen the burdens of 
the tax-payer. A wholesome reciprocity of duty between the Govern- 
ment and the governed should be upheld with the strictest fidelity, 
which cannot be done by taxing the people in behalf of foreign bond- 
holders ; by the Government contributing the profits of the labor of 
this country to enhance the wealth and increase the capital of the 
monied aristocracies of the old world. 

The patriots of the revolution grasped the sword and severed their 
connection with the mother country mainly because she made them 
tributary to her fortunes, while they were denied representation in her 
councils ; cause sufficient, but small in comparison with the unrequited 
burdens now sought to be imposed upon the American people by 
scheming sons of those patriot sires, by converting our debt, over- 
whelming as it is, into non-taxed gold bearing bonds, having over a 
quarter of century to run, and negotiating them abroad. Such is the 
syndicate policy. And if you would convert these States, virtually if 
not in fact, again into British colonies — -have every dollar of American 
gold melted in the British crucible, your factories, machine shops and 
ship yards closed, your finances, your foreign commerce and carrying 
trade placed at the mercy of Great Britain, and she permanently en- 
throned mistress of the seas, carry out the syndicate policy. But if 
you would remain free and independent and maintain that position 
among the nations of the earth, to which, by the laws of nature and 
nature's God, you are entitled, } r ou should keep your debt at home, in 
the hands of your own citizens, and subject to your own laws. 

A saving of one or one and a half per cent, interest, as claimed, if 
realized, does not justify the hazard of the enterprise. But, remember- 
ing that the reduced interest has to be paid every three months, and 
that the bondholder has the same to operate on for the remainder of 
the year, and that not a dollar of gold or other money is brought into 
the country by the process, but that it is only an exchange of a bond, 
the principal and interest both payable in gold, for a five-twenty bond 



14 AMERICAN FINANCE, 

the principle of which may be paid in the lawful money of the United 
States, and at the option of the Government, the saving, if anything, 
becomes infinitesimal in amount, a myth, and the subterfuge of the 
syndicate policy to substitute foreign for home creditors and convert 
our five-twenties into gold bonds, is exposed in its guilty deformity. 

The syndicate policy carried out as contemplated will extract 
millions annually from the wealth of this nation, and to that extent 
reduce the subjects of taxation, which would not occur if our accruing 
interest was paid to our own citizens. 

England, dependent upon her natural resources, is a pauper in com- 
parison with America, with hers. Yet constitute England our 
creditor, the holder of our non-taxed obligations, amounting to up- 
wards of two billions of dollars, to be paid, principal and interest, in 
gold, which we cannot now pay, and which, under our present mone- 
tary system, by reason of the scarcity of gold, we can never pay, and 
America will become a slave to English capitalists, or be driven to 
repudiation at a forfeit of the nation's honor. The products of the 
labor of our toiling millions of freemen will be appropriated to the 
aggrandizement of the aristocracy of England, as are the products of 
the toil of her own oppressed subjects. If you would avert such a 
calamity, the bare mention of which is enough to cause an American 
to feel for his sword, you must keep your debt at home in the hands of 
your own citizens. 

And if you would carry out the principles promulgated in the 
Declaration of Independence, and have Americans, in fact, as in 
theory, free and equal, or long continue .their institutions, you must 
relieve labor — the productive industry of the country — from the incu- 
bus of interest and discount, now exacted by law in behalf of the 
national banks. 

Greenbacks and the national currency must be superseded, and in 
lieu thereof Congress must establish a medium of exchange, not mere 
promises to pay, but possessing all of the qualities of money, and of a 
consistency and in quantity adapted to the convenience, and answerable 
to the necessities of the whole people. 

This Congress, as the representative agency of the people, may do. 
The authority to coin money needed not to have been conferred by 
constitutional provisions ; it is an inherent, indispensable and organic 
power which attaches to sovereignty, and in its exercise Congress 
should keep in view and circumscribe its action by the principles upon 
which the Government is founded. England does this, Imperial 
France did the same, and the Cerman Empire would welter in blood 
rather than surrender the exercise of power so vital to her imperial 
existence. England has her gold standard of payment, and paper 



ITS EVILS AND REMEDIES. 1$ 

promises or obligations to pay. So has America — gold for the use of 
capital — promises to pay for the uses of her laboring classes, for trade 
and commerce, and no system could be devised better adapted to the 
support of a monarchy, or more detrimental to republican institutions. 

Money is the creature of law. It is a token of sovereign power, and 
its stability or usefulness does not depend upon the value of the ma- 
terial upon which the token may be impressed, but upon the ability or 
wealth of the sovereign power of which it is the creature ; unless that 
which is intangible, a mere ideal, is a commodity, or unless sovereignty 
itself is a commodity, which it is not. The token alone imparts the 
powers or qualities of money, and when stamped by sovereign author- 
ity upon a thing of substance, the substance bearing the token, what- 
ever it may be, gold, silver or paper, becomes a standard, not of values, 
but of payment or exchange ; the law of supply and demand regulates 
values. Money is founded upon the whole wealth of a nation, backed 
by the power of sovereignty, and circulates as a medium of exchange 
in discharge of all obligations within the jurisdiction of its sovereign, 
and whatever the invention, falling short of this, it is not money in the 
true sense of that term. The token is the voice of sovereignty, speak- 
ing through the law, and will give to any substance the quality of 
money ! that quality being an assurance given it by law that a token 
which a vendor receives for the commodity he sells will pay for the 
commodity he buys according to an agreed price, or the value of the 
commodity. That which you may pay or tender in payment, or in 
discharge of a debt — the end of the law under the civil code — that 
which, embodying sovereign powers, when property has been levied 
on, and the law officer is about to pronounce the fatal word, sold* 
which has carried woe into so many households, and driven widows 
and orphans numbering millions to depend upon the cold charity of 
the world, will satisfy the judgment, and stop the sale. 

The commodity upon which the token may be stamped, may, as 
gold and silver do, possess material value, but the value exists because 
of the uses to which the commodity may be applied, not because of the 
stamp of the money token. 

A piece of gold of the same weight and carat of a twenty dollar 
gold piece, is as valuable without as with the money token, save the 
expense of coinage. 

Gold is not created by law, neither is silver, while money is the 
creature of law solely. Gold and silver are parts of the creation or 
substances produced by natural causes, and depend upon labor to de- 
velope their usefulness and adapt them to the uses of mankind, the 
same as the diamond that adorns the brow of majesty, or renders more 
resplendent the charms of our queenly beauties. The diamond is more 



1 6 AMERICAN FINANCE, 

precious than gold, but it has not the quality of money, and why? for 
the want of the money token, that which alone can impart to any 
substance the quality of money. The gold eagle has the quality of 
money, and why? because in pursuance of law the money token is 
stamped thereon. 

Gold and silver, like other useful commodities possessing material 
value, as articles of commerce augment the wealth of the nation that 
produces them ; but they do not of themselves possess the quality of 
money any more than does any other substance. They are but com- 
modities until the money token is affixed to them. It follows that 
every ounce of gold and silver that is produced from our gold and 
silver mines and coined into money, is to that extent subtracting from 
the commercial wealth of the nation, and adding to the balance of trade 
against us. 

The value of our gold and silver products amounts to many millions 
annually, all of which the only legitimate use of money being to facili- 
tate the business transactions of our trade and commerce, is lost to our 
commercial wealth, being buried in the money token. 

Is this sacrifice made from necessity? Are gold and silver the only 
commodities of which money may be coined ? Cannot paper be stamped 
with the money token ? Assuredly it can ; and if it is the money token 
that imparts to a substance the powers or qualities of money, reason, 
although supported by the prejudices of ages, must fail to explain why 
money may not be coined of paper. 

It may be urged, it has been urged, that under the Constitution, the 
government can use only metals in the coinage of money, but this idea, 
under the enlightened construction of that instrument, by the Nation's 
highest legal tribunal, in the cases of Knox vs. Lee ; Parker vs. Davis, 
and Toblick vs. Wilson, reported in 12th Wallace, has been exploded ; 
and it would seem, if reason is to control, forever put to rest. Con- 
gress may provide for the coinage of paper dollars or gold dollars, or 
both, as in its wisdom deemed expedient. This power is inherent in 
the sovereign people, to be exercised through their representatives in 
Congress assembled ; and without the right of its untrammeled exer- 
cise, this nation would stand before the world an invalid sovereign, 
with the right arm of her sovereignty palsied by her side ; a flimsy 
structure, without the means of self-defense ; a prey to other powers ; 
the victim of mob-rule and insurrection. What would have been the 
fate of the Union of these States in the late civil war, if we had had 
no other than gold or silver money, or power to resort to any other 
expedient? What would have been our destiny? How could we have 
assembled our armies or maintained them in the field? Would it not 



ITS EVILS AND ITS REMEDIES. 1 7 

ere now have been written of the American Republic, as it is of the 
Republics of former ages : 

" Gone glimmering through the dream of things that were : 
A schoolboy's tale the wonder of an hour. 1 ' 

Gold, as a medium of exchange on account of its known insufficiency 
in amount, and its want of adaptability to the demands of trade and 
commerce, as has been aptly said, " Is a myth, a phantom, a ship in 
full sail in the clouds." And has since the discovery of the power of 
Polar attraction, which converted the oceans into common highways 
for the Nations, given place to the sceptre of the currency that indis- 
pensable and more potent agency of commerce. 

Gold, as the sole means of payment or redemption, in view of the 
magnitude of our debt and its scarcity, is a most wicked delusion, 
and in the disguise of funding bills, will perpetuate the burdens of the 
people. 

The gross amount of the debt of the Nation, municipal, State and 
National, is not less than three and one-half billions of dollars. Can 
this vast sum be paid in gold under our present money system? Do 
the people now, or can they ever, possess it? Never. Your revenue 
laws may provide for its levy and collection ; and under the claim of 
the public necessities the authorities may seek to extort it even by tyran- 
nical inflictions, it will not be, it cannot be obtained; the interest alone 
on a sum so vast, payable in gold, will absorb all of the profits of the 
productive industries ot the nation, and perpetuate the debt. No hope 
of paying a sum so vast, under our present monetary system can be 
honestly entertained ; the amount of gold is wholly insufficient to jus- 
tify it, and to promise it is a fraud concealed beneath the mantle of the 
funding bill policy. 

Capital should pause ; necessity knows no law. 

Patriotism, the welfare of the nation, the cause of liberty and man- 
kind, counsel peace, patient endurance, but oppression persistingly 
imposed absolves all ties, invokes the rights of self-preservation, the 
first law of nature ; and sooner or later the people, even at the risk of 
ills they know not of, will seek in blood, if necessary, the overthrow of 
the power of their oppressors. 

Gold, I may say, is the sovereign of metals, but as the sole standard, 
or measure of payment, on account of its insufficiency in amount and 
value as a commodity, a most potent centralizer of wealth and power; 
a foe to civil equality, and hence incompatible with the genius and 
spirit of our institutions. Having the quality of money, it is an exact- 
ing tyrant in peace, and in war a hiding, cringing, skulking coward. 

When the sad tidings of America at war with herself went crushing 
through the great American heart, and the sons of toil on either side were 



1 8 AMERICAN FINANCE. 

pressing to the front, with their resolves to conquer or die, the votaries of 
capital neither North or South drew the sword of offence or defence, but 
with a devotion not excelled by Pagan Idoiatry, clasped their idol gold 
to their bosoms and fleeing the tents of chivalry and patriotism, sought 
safety within the shadow of the British Throne, or under the protect- 
ing wings of the Eagles of France ; only anxious for the opportunity, 
now and during that lamentable conflict, so fully enjoyed, to prey upon 
the necessities of a war-stricken nation. Yes, while the mournful 
tragedy of the war was being enacted, and the advocates for free gov- 
ernment were, with trembling suspense, awaiting the fate of the Re- 
public — whether the last hope of liberty was to be lost in that endless 
night that gathered over the Republic of former times, or whether her 
patriot defenders would return from the unnatural conflict bearing as 
trophies of victory the shackles of four millions of slaves — while sur- 
rounded by a nation in tears and shrouded in mourning ; even while 
the dome of the capital of the nation was reflecting the light of the 
campfires of an imposing rebellion, the Capital conspirators, with the 
gold and silver spectre, were in the departments of State, in the com- 
mittee room, in the lobby, and on the floor of the halls of Congress, 
night and day, suggesting, scheming, controlling, and adroitly shaping 
legislation, to enslave and make tributary to their unappeasable avarice 
{•he profits of the products of labor, and the story of their success, the 
attainment of the ends they aimed at, fraught with mischief and op- 
pression to the people, is told in a national debt of over two billions of 
dollars secured by non-taxed bonds bearing gold interest ; is told, in 
the price the bonds were sold for (on an average of fifty-five cents to 
the dollar, paid in greenbacks at their face, and while as measured by 
the gold standard, they were at a discount on an average of thirty 
cents on the dollar), is told in the amount of interest that has been paid 
in gold on the bonds, amounting to their original cost and over ; is told 
in the establishment of the National Banking system, on the basis of 
the bonds, and in the monopoly conferred upon the National Banking 
Association ; in their being constituted the sole agency through which 
the community may obtain the currency, and in the fact of the authority 
conferred upon the banks as such agency, to exact ten per cent, inter- 
est paid in advance and calculated on the face of the loan ; while the 
currency is furnished to the banks by the government without interest 
or discount : is told in the fact that the productive industry of the coun- 
try is taxed to pay the bondholders the earnings of their capital in gold, 
while the people are restricted to a depreciated currency as their sole 
and only medium of exchange, and for the payment of their earnings ; 
is told in the money difference between gold and the national currency, 
in the fact that capital wields the gold sceptre, free from taxation 



ITS EVILS AND ITS REMEDIES. 19 

while the merchant, the mechanic, manufacturer and farmer are taxed 
to pay to capital its gold interest, and at the same time are charged 
ten per cent, on short loans for the use of the currency, and also at the 
same time have to bear the loss of the money difference between gold 
and the currency ; thus perpetuating the supremacy of gold and the 
burdens of the people. It is told in the fact that the capital invested 
in our bonds is rewarded with all the profits of labor, while the pro- 
duct of labor bear all of the burdens of government. It is told in the 
fact, that instead of a currency medium of exchange, bearing the money 
token and made receivable for all dues to the government, as well as 
between individuals, and which would have made it a standard of pay- 
ment co-equal with gold in all domestic transactions, Congress was in- 
duced, to provide by law, that the interest on our bonds and duties on 
imports should be paid in gold, thus subordinating the currency in the 
hands of the people to the gold standard controlled by capital ; is told 
in the fact that the soldier who exchanged the comforts and endear- 
ments of home for the hardships and perils of war, the farmer, the 
producer and material men who furnished supplies were paid for their 
services and property, and had their patriotism rewarded in a depreci- 
ated currency ; the money broker and exchange dealer, who shunned 
the hazard of the conflict, were rewarded with gold interest, and are 
to-day the pensioned wards of the nation. 

I again ask, is this " equal and exact justice to all, exclusive privil- 
edges to none ?" And repeat that the history of the legislation of no 
country in any age, furnishes an example for such injustice, such 
inequality. 

It is true that the monarchies of the old world have their gold stand- 
ards of payment, which are wielded by capital in the hands of their 
aristocracies ; but the monopoly, the exclusive privileges conferred by 
law upon the National Banking Associations, are unknown save in the 
American Republic. 

If, then, it is true that the authority to coin money abides in the gov- 
ernment by constitutional grant or by virtue of inherent sovereign 
power, and that the money token will impart to any substance upon 
which it may be stamped the qualities of money ; and that whether 
money shall be coined of gold, silver or paper, or of any one, or all of 
these substances, is a question not of power, but of mere policy ; and 
that the sole and only legitimate purpose of the coinage of money is to 
facilitate the transaction of the business of the nation, her trade and 
commerce ; and that to give it uniformity, stability and credit, it should 
emanate exclusively from the general government, in quantity and of a 
kind, answerable to the necessities of the people, and at the same time 
compatible in its effects upon community, with republican institutions. 



20 AMERICAN FINANCE, 

If gold is insufficient in amount as a medium of exchange, or as a basis 
for a medium of exchange, to give life and activity to the developed and 
developing wealth of the nation, and to promise it in redemption, is a 
fraud, because the promise cannot be kept, and by reason of its scarcity 
furnishes the pretext for another and additional circulating medium, 
such as the national currency, thus creating a two-fold medium of ex- 
change ; ever hurtful to productive industry, and that as the measure 
of payment, gold tends to concentrate capital and centralize power; 
and as a means of payment of the debt of the nation it is a delusion, 
and will necessitate funding bills and renewed loans, secured by non- 
taxed gold bearing bonds, perpetually relieving capital from taxation 
and perpetuating the burdens of the people and the debt of the nation ; 
and, if under the syndicate policy our bonds are to be placed beyond 
the jurisdiction of our laws, and our people are to be perpetually taxed 
to pay the interest on our non-taxed securities in the hands of foreign cap- 
italists, by which process America, withher glorious past and promised 
future, must become a mere tributary power. The time has come, the 
occasion demands, and the future hopes of the nation, of liberty, and 
of civil equality, call upon the people to arouse themselves to a reali- 
zation and just appreciation of the evils of our monetary system, and in 
the name of the imposing sovereignty they have the right to wield, as 
one man, demand and require that their representative agency — the 
Congress — shall by statute law interpose and relieve them from the 
evils of past legislation, and afford them protection for the future — a 
consummation vital to the Republic — clearly attainable within the 
grants of the Constitution, and in full accord with the theory of our 
institutions. 

That is, to defray the current expenses of the government — pay 
instead of funding the national debt — furnish a safe and uniform me- 
dium of exchange, establish equal financial privileges between pro- 
ductive industry and capital, furnish the people with a standard of 
payment for a circulating medium, sufficient in amount to reanimate 
trade, stimulate private and public enterprise, develop the natural re- 
sources of the nation, protect the people against the wrongs, imposi- 
tions and oppressions of the national banks, money-brokers and ex- 
change dealers, and return to the policy of paying as we go. No less 
indispensable to free government than to the prosperity of an individual 
freeman. Justice to the people, the general welfare calls for the coin- 
age of paper dollars, stamped with the sovereign money token of the 
nation, and by the law of their coinage made receivable in full dis- 
charge of all dues to the government, including the tariff or duties on 
imports now required to be paid in gold, and also payable in full dis- 
charge of all debts and liabilities, individual, State and National (not 



ITS EVILS AND ITS REMEDIES. 21 

now required to be paid in gold or silver coin); and that instead of 
any further funding the public debt into non-taxed bonds, the principal 
and interest thereof to be paid in gold and negotiating them in Eng- 
land or other foreign government, as provided for under the Syndicate 
policy, the law authorizing the same should be repealed, and a law 
enacted providing for and requiring the payment of our bonds as rap- 
idly as the financial condition of the country may justify, say in sums 
annually of five hundred millions in installments at stated periods dur- 
ing the year, according as they may be numbered in their series and 
priority of date. Those payable in lawful money and at the option of 
the government to be first paid, and in the money so coined ; and that 
in case the bondholder should neglect or refuse to present the bonds 
for payment as required, the interest thereon should be thereafter 
stopped. 

I am not unaware that a policy such as is here indicated would incur 
the sore displeasure and bitter denunciation of the bondholder, gold 
rings, the national banks, and all like non-producing worshippers of 
the Golden Calf and their subsidised followers. "A fellow feeling 
makes us wondrous kind," and as one man they would exclaim expan- 
sion, and with uplifted hands howl repudiation, dishonor. It is not 
the debt that the bondholder wants, it is his gold interest and a perpetual 
exemption of his capital from taxation. 

The gold rings, the Wall Street Junta, who wield the gold sceptre to 
the undoing of the profits of the producer, could not endure a policy, 
which in the overthrow of our two-fold medium of exchange, and the 
repeal of the law requiring duties on imports to be paid in gold, con- 
templates the ruin of their devouring traffic. 

And to deprive the national banks of the sceptre of the currency, by 
placing in the hands of the people a standard of payment for a circu- 
lating medium, the co-equal before the law with gold in the transaction 
of the business of trade and commerce, would drive them to abdicate 
their powers, by which they hold as in the hollow of their hands the 
control of the vast products of the labor of the country ; powers no less 
dangerous to civil equality than the rebellion from which they sprung 
— powers that will be enjoyed by the banks while a fetid Congress re- 
mains open to their insidious approaches. 

Nor will such objectors stand alone, unfortunately for the country, 
and which will render the success oi such a policy a labored one, and 
to establish it require a determined movement along the w T hole line of 
the people ; many of our most experienced, gifted and honored states- 
men, who are relied upon and confided in as political teachers, and 
who have been and will continue prominent in framing rules of action, 
and in moulding the public judgment, acting, as we will accord, from 



22 AMERICAN FINANCE, 

a high sense of duty, and may be patriotic devotion to our common 
country ; adhering to the policy of the mother country and the practice 
of our own derived therefrom ; supported by their most potent auxil- 
liary that portion of the public press which they command, and by 
which their ideas and opinions well reasoned and seductively clothed 
are pulsated throughout the body politic ; intrenched behind fixed 
opinions and a popular prejudice deeply rooted in the public mind 
against a paper circulating medium, caused by the fact that it has 
never had imparted to it by the stamp of the money token the qualities 
of money as gold has ; countenanced and applauded by gold rings, 
the national banks, bondholders and exchange dealers will throw around 
our monetary system the mantle of their protection, and with practiced 
tongue pour out studied anathemas in denunciation of a policy which 
contemplates the speedy payment of the national debt — relief from the 
payment of interest — forcing capital to share in the public burdens, 
and guaranteeing to labor, to productive industry, equal financial priv- 
ileges with capital and abolishing exclusive privileges, and bringing 
about an equitable distribution of the profits of labor between capital 
and labor. 

Yes, honored Senators and Representatives in Congress, and their 
aid-de-camps of the hustings, with no small show of defiance and impa- 
tient of opposing views, will proclaim paper money, although bearing the 
money token of the nation, founded upon its good faith, and daily re- 
deemed in the commodities of trade and taxation, worthless trash, 
wholly delusive unless convertible into another commodity, gold, at the 
will of the holder. 

Again, that the substance of which money is composed should pos- 
sess an intrinsic value equal to the value thereof as fixed by the money 
token stamped thereon. 

Again, that gold is the money standard of the whole world, and 
therefore our commercial interests, as one of the sisterhood of nations, 
demands a like standard of values. 

Again, that a national debt is a national blessing — that it works no 
injury to the people. 

Again, that our public debt was incurred to save the life of the nation, 
and therefore this generation having fought the battles of the war, pos- 
terity should pay the debt. 

A formidable roll of objections, truly; and, if well founded in fact^ 
and indorsed by the principles invoked by the founders of the Repub- 
lic, constitute a most potent appeal for a continuation of our monetary 
system, and for submission on the part of the people, to the wrongs 
entailed upon them thereby ; but if not so founded and indorsed, or at 
all incompatible with the theory upon which the Republic is pillared, 



ITS EVILS AND ITS REMEDIES. 23 

in view of the civil inequality inaugurated thereby, they should be 
swept away, with the ill-founded reasons relied on in justification 
of the wrongs, impositions and oppressions overcome by the Revolution, 
and buried, I trust, forever beneath the bloody footprints of our Revo- 
lutionary sires. 

How stand the facts? We have at no time since the organization of 
the government had such an issue or coinage of money. The nearest 
approach to it is found in the greenback and national currency issues, 
but which, by reason of their being mere promises to pay money — 
limited in their functions of payment, not having imparted to them, 
only in part, the sovereign powers that are imparted by the stamp of 
the money token, they fall far short of possessing the powers of money, 
as would paper money coined as proposed. 

Greenbacks, nor is the national currency, convertible into gold at 
the will of the holder, nor are they made redeemable in gold or other 
coin, and yet those who may oppose the coinage of paper money, as I 
have had the temerity here to suggest — although issuing from the 
same mint, resting upon the-. same authority, backed by the same sov- 
ereign sanction, and possessing enlarged functions, being made receiv- 
able in discharge of all dues to the government, including the tariff or 
duties on imports now required to be paid in gold, while they con- 
demn such a coinage, with what consistency the country must judge, 
will declare greenbacks and the national currency the best paper money 
system in the world, and the best that can be devised, and asked why- 
answer : because resting upon the promise of the American people and 
the boundless resources of the nation. 

May I ask, if the wealth and plighted faith of the American nation 
give credit and stability to her mere promises to pay money, will 
not that wealth and plighted faith give credit and stability to any 
substance bearing the stamp of the sovereign money token of the 
nation? 

But it will be said that the coinage of paper dollars would result in 
a paper medium of exchange, in exclusion of gold and silver — would 
drive gold and silver out of circulation. On the contrary, the coinage 
of paper dollars, made the co-equal of gold in the transaction of the 
business of the people, and thereby furnish the community with a 
measure or standard of payment, possessing all of the qualities of 
money, would leave gold to lie idle in the vaults, where it is now 
hoarded for speculative purposes solely, or to seek investment in the 
channels of trade, and in the development of the natural resources of 
the country. 

Idle it would not be permitted to remain. An inducement to that 
end would be wanting, and capital would not brook the loss, but ever 



24 AMERICAN FINANCE, 

vigilant in its own behalf capital would dispatch gold in search of its 
coveted gains. 

But, suppose the result would prove an exclusive paper medium of 
exchange, what have we now? And what have we had for the last 
twelve years? Who among you during that period of time has seen 
a dollar of gold applied to the purposes of its coinage, circulating as a 
medium of exchange in the transaction of the business of trade and 
commerce. Has it not, while under the law, holding the chief place 
as a standard of payment, been withdrawn from circulation, retired by 
capital, and converted into a commodity — a thing of mere bargain and 
sale, while greenbacks and the national currency have been substituted 
for the uses of the people — their only attainable medium of exchange. 

And who so bold as to insist that paper dollars, clothed with the 
powers of the money token, would not be far preferable to green- 
backs and the national currency as a circulating medium, limited in 
function, encumbered with interest, and trammeled with discount as 
the national currency and greenbacks are. And who so blind to rea- 
son as not to see in a circulating medium having all of the attributes 
and powers of money — an equal with gold, at par with it in the chan- 
nels of trade — a bulwark of productive industry, as well as of capital? 

But again, it is urged that the substance used in the coinage of 
money should possess an intrinsic or material value equal to the value 
thereof, as fixed by the money token stamped thereon, or be made con- 
vertible into gold at the will of the holder. Here we have the index 
to the long chapter of wrongs imposed by capital upon labor, artfully 
concealed in the mystery of a redeemable currency without the means 
of redemption. Here is the weight that pulls productive industry 
down, and enables capital to wield the financial sceptre to the enslave- 
ment of labor. 

Here we have capital stripped of its disguise — of its beguilements, 
and see the lash with which the people are scourged, and the hand 
that inflicts the blows. Exhibited in a two-fold medium of exchange 
— gold and the currency — gold possessing a high commercial value as 
a commodity for the uses of centralized wealth, and currency infinites- 
imal in value as a commodity for the uses of the people. 

A monetary system well devised to strengthen aristocracies and per- 
petuate monarchies, where it originated, but wholly at war with civil 
equality the only hope of a free people. If it was true that the com- 
mercial value of the commodity used in the coinage of money, and not 
the stamp of the money token imparted the qualities or powers of 
money, my voice would be for the use of the precious metals solely, 
and thus shun the evils of a two-fold medium of exchange — thus avoid 
the monopolies and exclusive privileges conferred upon money corpor- 



ITS EVILS AND ITS REMEDIES. 2$ 

ations — the money difference between gold coin and a depreciated cur- 
rency — the discount paid to the national banks and drive gold into the 
channels of trade, where it will not be found while it remains the sov- 
ereign measurer of payment, and is rewarded with the emoluments of 
discount. But it will be urged that gold is insufficient in amount to 
answer the demands of our trade and commerce. True, but what 
then? As they do now, those who urge upon us a two-fold medium 
of exchange will be driven to take refuge in a paper-mill, and under 
the specious pretense of necessity come from thence ladened with 
greenbacks or the national currency, or both, to supply a circulating 
medium. 

But it is not true that the qualities of money are imparted by or 
depend upon the commercial value of the commodity or substance 
employed in its coinage ; on the contrary, the qualities of money are 
conferred by the exercise of a power belonging to sovereignty, which is 
expressed and made tangible by the stamp of the money token on a 
thing of substance. 

The value of the money token is, and should be measured and de- 
pend upon the ability of the sovereign employing it, to make good or 
enforce its decrees. It should depend upon and not be independent of 
its sovereign. 

Money, properly understand, is not a commodity. It can have no 
commercial value as a commodity ; and when converted into a com- 
modity : is made merchandise ; is bought and sold as gold is, it is given 
a property which does not belong to it, and becomes an alien to the 
purposes of its coinage. 

Having a commercial Value as a commodity as gold has; when its 
sovereign is imperilled, when it is most needed it will forsake its func- 
tion as a circulating medium, become a thing of mere bargain and 
sale, or take refuge beyond the pales of danger. But if its value as a 
commodity should be nominal as paper would be, the gates of com- 
merce would be closed against it as a commodity, and it would be 
driven to the side of its creator, there to abide the fate to stand or fall 
with its sovereign. 

But it will be asked, what is to be done when we may be compelled 
to seek foreign aid. This is a contingency too humiliating to influence 
the policy of the American nation, but my answer is, do as we do 
now, and as we ever have done, pay in the equivalent. Again it may 
be asked, how are we to pay our gold interest? My answer again is, do 
as we do now, pay in the equivalent. Again it may be asked, how are 
we to pay for commodities imported hither from foreign countries? 
I again answer, do as we do now, pay in the equivalent. Again it 
will be asked, how are we to pay our bonds made payable in gold? I 
again answer, pay in the equivalent. 



26 AMERICAN FINANCE, 

If we could but realize the fact that the people, and not the authori- 
ties at Washington, are the government, our solutions would be easier. 
American coin, although bearing the money token of the most abun- 
dant of nations and imposing Republic known to history, is not paya- 
ble by virtue of that token in England, but when offered there, is at 
once . stripped of its money qualities, reduced to the grade of a mere 
commodity, and its value fixed, not by the token it bears, but as meas- 
ured by the English standard of values. The money difference between 
our greenbacks and national currency and gold coin that is collected 
and paid into the treasurv in the payment of the duties on imports, 
and the money difference between our circulating medium and Lon- 
don exchange paid for foreign commodities imported here, are added 
to the cost of the commodity, and are borne by the people by whom 
they are consumed. 

Impelled by these considerations, verified by our experience, I adopt 
the view, that the commercial value of the material, of which money is 
coined and furnished by the government, should be the lowest in amount. 

That the standard value of money must ever vary somewhat from 
the worth of its material, when the value as of gold is commercially 
high, its fluctuations on account of quantity may become serious, but 
when it is cheap as of paper, its variations are infinitesimal in amount. 
Paper reaches a uniformity of standard value, as nearly as human wis- 
dom can devise, and as a medium of exchange the commercial world, 
despite of the edicts of parliaments and congresses, in its use condemns 
the gold and silver theory as a heresy. 

In former times the commerce of mankind was limited, and its com- 
rade money was equally sparse ; commerce was tedious, slow in its 
movements, and scant in its store ; it traded by exchange one commo- 
dity for another, but the discovery of Polar Attraction, and the uses of 
the mariner's compass imparted a new life to commerce, quickened its 
transit, and necessitated an agency that antiquity knew nothing of ; cur- 
rency became that agency, and in the hands of modern nations has 
ousted gold as a usurper, and driven it into the fetid haunts of mere 
speculative brokerage, where, clothed with its legal superiority, it is 
the instrument with which law-favored capital enhances the wealth 
and augments the powers of its aristocratic possessors. 

But again, it is insisted that gold is the money standard of the whole 
world, and therefore America, as one of the sisterhood of nations, 
should have a like standard of values. A mere flourish of words hav- 
ing no foundation in fact — the argument of gold-banded capital and 
pitfall of productive industry. It is true that England has her gold 
standard of payment ; so has the German Empire and other foreign 
powers, and we have ©urs ; but it is also true that the gold coin of Ger- 



ITS EVILS AND ITS REMEDIES. 2*] 

many, of France, or of America, is not a standard of payment 
in England, nor is the gold coin of England a standard of pay- 
ment either in Germany, France or America. The fact being that the 
money of no nation, no matter what its material, is current as money, 
or possesses the powers or qualities of money within another sover- 
eignty. The gold eagle of America does not run current with the 
Napoleon of France, or the sovereign of England. It cannot be ten- 
dered in payment, or paid in discharge of a debt, judgment, decree or 
other obligation beyond the jurisdiction of its sovereign. When our 
coin is taken out of the limits of the United States, it is at once stripped 
of its money qualities, of its money powers, imparted by the American 
money token, and becomes a commercial commodity. American gold 
is at a discount of from eight to nine per cent, at the British counter. 

In the presence of these facts, I pronounce the assertion "that gold 
is the money standard of the world," an absurdity A nation's 
sovereignty is confined to the limits of its jurisdiction. One sovereignty 
has no power within another sovereignty in the matter of the establish- 
ment of a money standard of payment. A money standard of pay- 
ment is the result of the exercise of one of the highest and most indis- 
pensable attributes of sovereignty, and so vital to independent govern- 
ment that it has ever been the practice of nations to guard its exercise 
with the most jealous care. There is no such thing as reciprocity 
among nations in the establishment of a money standard of payment 
or of a standard value of money, nor can there 'be, and they remain 
independent of each other ; nor should there be between this Republic 
and the monarchies of Europe. 

If America would prove America's friend, she must, in the establish- 
ment of her money standard or measure of payment, conform to her 
own circumstances, ability and theory of government. If gold, on 
account of its insufficiency in amount, is inadequate as a circulating 
medium, or tends to the undue concentration of wealth — necessitates a 
borrowed money system or a two-fold medium of exchange to continue 
it the standard or measure of payment, in exclusion of another sub- 
stance not subject to such objections, is to apply the knife to her own 
throat — suicidal. History records William Pitt, one of the greatest of 
English statesmen, as having said : " Let the Americans adopt their fund- 
ing system and go into their banking institutions, and their boasted 
independence will be a mere phantom," and the fact cannot be ignored, 
that until we abandon gold as the basis of a medium of exchange or 
chief standard of payment, we will be driven to resort to public loans, 
funding bills, and to the establishment of banks of issue either by the 
states or by the nation. 

It has been said, and truly, that the money token of a people is for 



28 AMERICAN FINANCE, 

domestic, not foreign purposes. It is immaterial to a foreign nation 
what the medium of exchange of another people in their home traffic 
is composed of. When the citizens of diverse nations interchange their 
wealth let them settle their balances as they individually choose, but 
each nation should adjust its own household affairs as it suits it. 

When American products are imported into England or France for 
sale, they are no longer American commodities — they are French or 
English merchandise to be bought and sold, not for the American, but 
for the French or English standard of payment — with which the 
shipper may purchase French or English commodities for the American 
market, which, imported here, in like manner become American 
merchandise to be bought and sold, not for the money token of France 
or England, but of America, else sovereignty would surrender the 
powers of the money token to usurping capital, and thereby surrender 
the control of its commerce, domestic and foreign. 

While it is the duty of the American law-giver to guard with jealous 
care all legitimate pursuits, he should with wakeful vigilance shield 
and foster the productive industry of the nation, for it is the source of 
all wealth, the sheet anchor of the Republic. 

The foreign commerce of the United States does not exceed Jive 
$er cent, of her domestic trade. W T hy then, I ask, why ignore a 
policy consistent with our theory of government, and adapted to our 
conveniences and necessities, to accommodate our money standard or 
measure of payment to the financial policy of the old world? "He 
who provideth not for his own household is worse than an infidel ;" — is as 
true of a nation as of an individual. But we are pointed (it must be 
with averted face,) to the greenback and national currency issues, de- 
preciated by interest and discount — their money powers being measured 
by the gold standard as the people's panacea. 

I propose no war upon capital, nor upon its idol, gold ; capital is 
as necessary to labor as labor is to it — iurther than to maintain, that 
capital should bear a due proportion of the public burdens, and con- 
tent itself with an equitable distribution of the profits of productive 
industry, and that the Government shall establish a medium of ex- 
change possessing equal powers with gold, within the limits of our 
national jurisdiction. 

I would not have our mints closed to the coinage of gold and silver, 
and the coinage of paper dollars involves no such necessity or conse- 
quence. Let the fortunate owner of these commodities have them 
coined into money at will, but I would have the Government coin 
paper money sufficient in amount to represent the developed and de- 
veloping wealth of the nation as a circulating medium of exchange, 
stamped with the sovereign money token of the nation, and thus made 
the co-equal of gold in the transaction of our domestic affairs. 

But again, it is insisted that a national debt is a national blessing. 
That a national debt works no injury or wrong to the people. That it 
stimulates public energy and enterprise, and enforces the industry of 
the people, and that in this they are blessed ; and of a truth, if it be 
true, that a national debt is a national blessing, the people of the 
United States are most blessed. They are in the midst of a national 
millenium, and their murmurings under their inflictions are unjust to 
their public servants. And that instead of reducing or paying the 



ITS EVILS AND ITS REMEDIES. 20. 

public debt it should be increased. The camp-fires of the Rebellion 
should be rekindled, and the liabilities thereby entailed upon the peo- 
ple many times multiplied. Instead of a debt, state and national, of 
three and a half bilions, let it be increased to thirty or forty billions, 
so that every dollar of the nation's wealth shall be incumbered by a 
corresponding indebtedness, bearing interest at a rate that will necessi- 
tate funding bills to be again and again funded, and thus insure the per- 
petuation of the debt. Instead of a reduction of taxation, taxation 
should be increased until the last farth ng of the profits of labor is 
periodically wrung from the toiling millions of the nation, and sacri- 
ficed at the shrine of capital. Instead of rewarding home industry 
and capital with the profits of productive industry, and thus augment 
the subjects of taxation, and lessen the burdens of the tax-payer, send 
our bonds abroad, negotiate them in foreign markets, so that the inter- 
est extorted by taxation shall be withdrawn from our national wealth 
and poured into the laps of the monied aristocracies of Europe as 
contemplated by the syndicate policy. 

If a public debt is a national blessing, what credit have they who 
may be honestly laboring for the extinguishment of ours? What 
credit is due to the administration for its patriotic efforts to that end? 

Why hail as public benefactors those who may be with patriotic 
fidelity endeavoring to so shape legislation as to relieve the people 
from the crushing weight of the exactions imposed upon them? 

If a public debt is a national blessing, away with honesty in the 
discharge of public trusts. Away with economy in the administration 
of public affairs. Veil forever the teachings and example of those 
who fought the Revolution, to give life, character and independence to 
the Republic. Repeat again and again the "Credit Mobilier ;" wipe 
out the imaginary shame of the salary-grabbers ; restore those injured 
innocents to favor, and bid them on in the work of the profligate in- 
crease of the public expenditures. 

Promote to places of trust and public confidence those only who, in 
defiance of constitutional limitation, will multiply corporate monopolies, 
land grants and subsidies ; who will conceal lraud beneath their official 
robes, and give a loose reign to official corruption, for such have and 
ever will prove fruitful sources of a public debt. 

But, appealing to the sentiments of the founders, as promulgated in 
that instrument by which they threw down the gauntlet of war to the 
mother country, and believing that the law should have no favorites, in 
the name of our institutions, and the reasons which gave them birth, I 
pronounce the assertion "that a public debt is a national blessing'' a 
political heresy. >» 

A public debt necessitates taxation, and every dollar of tax imposed 
upon the citizen is a charge upon his earnings, and to that extent les- 
sens the rewards of his labor. 

Ask the producer on his return from his market, after having paid 
the cost of the transportation of his products, if he finds comfort in the 
visitation of the emissaries of the bondholder and exchange dealer — 
the tax gatherer. Ask the mechanic, or he who may have gone through 
a year's diligent toil in any branch of industry, if he finds consolation 
in the fact that all of his earnings have been absorbed in the cost of 
his living. 



30 AMERICAN FINANCE, 

A public debt in one way or another adds to the cost of all of the 
necessaries of life, and when the debt is held by capital, as is ours, and 
exists in non-taxed gold-bearing bonds in the hands of foreign capital- 
ists, the oppression upon productive industry is increased two-fold. 
No, the assertion "a public debt is a national blessing" is the language 
of law-favored capital to a tax-enslaved people — of the bondholder and 
exchange dealer, to oppressed labor — of non-taxed capital to a tax- 
burdened people, restive under their oppressions — is the language of 
the subsidised advocates of the borrowed money policy, and in conflict 
with the words of the proverb, " The borrower is ever the slave to the 
lender," penned by the wisest of men, and as true now as it was in the 
days of Solomon. 

A nation like an individual, to be politically blessed must be inde- 
pendent of creditors, free from their exactions. And J. Cook, who 
parroted the heresy, is a recent and most striking illustration of its 
fallacy, the closing of whose vaults, whether they contained the tin 
box or not, as by magic closed the doors of the banks throughout the 
nation ; even Europe felt the shock. 

But again it is insisted that our debt was incurred to save the life of 
the nation, and that this generation having fought the battles of the 
war, posterity should pay the debt. True, the debt resulted from the 
war, and it is now too late to urge the impolicy of issuing 1 gold bearing 
bonds and their having been disposed of at ruinous discount, by which 
the expenses of the war were doubled. Instead of a resort to a power 
belonging to sovereignty and inherent in the government, and the coin- 
age of paper money instead of bonds, and have made it receivable for 
all dues to the government, including duties on imports as well as 
between individuals, which must and would have given it credit and 
circulation, would have made it better than greenbacks or the currency,, 
and by which the actual expenses of the war would have long since been 
absorbed in the payment of taxes, and the sacrifice incurred in the sale 
of the bonds, and the payment of gold interest, already amounting to 
a sum as great if not in excess of the. amount realized from the sale of 
the bonds avoided. 

But it does not follow, that because this generation fought the battles 
of the war that therefore we should hand down to posterity the debt 
incured thereby. 

The debt is ours, and, if possible, we should pay it ; for while it 
was incurred to preserve the unity of the nation, that we might trans- 
mit to posterity that which had been confided to us with solemn in- 
junction to defend it against all foes, foreign and domestic, it is no less 
true that the debt was contracted in vindication of our own rights 
to defend our own property and firesides, to maintain our own liberty 
and independence, and make America, indeed, a nation of freemen, ta 
abolish slavery. Posterity may, and most likely will, have its own 
foes to contend against, its own liberty and independence to defend as 
we have had ours to defend, and if we would prove ourselves worthy 
of the name of patriots, we must, within the scope of our ability and 
sovereign authority, in peace as in war, prove true to the cause of 
liberty and mankind, by transmitting to posterity our institutions strong 
in the affections and confidence of the people, and not the palsied re- 
mains of a once imposing Republic, with battered crest and gore 



ITS EVILS AND ITS REMEDIES. 3 1 

stained jaws, topling to its fall under the crushing weight of a public 
debt in the hands of an exacting non-taxed monied aristocracy. 

And what would be gained by turning over the debt to posterity? 
The interest goes on. and this generation must, under our existing 
monetary system, pay in interest alone, a sum equal to the debt. Make 
the calculation, if you will, and you will find the assertion verified. 

What, then, is our duty? In the presence of the evils borne by the 
people, with the sad experience of nations long since entombed beneath 
the ruins of their once imposing grandeur before us, the answer forces 
itself upon us : Pay the debt and stop the interest. 

Congress has the power to coin paper money and make it receivable 
for all dues to the nation and between individuals, not payable in kind, 
and with the money so coined, may provide the means for the payment 
of the national debt, and lift from the people the incubus by which 
they are prostrated at the feet of overshadowing monopolies, banks, 
bondholders and gold rings. That would secure to the people a circu- 
lating medium, the co-equal at par with gold in the transaction of the 
nation's interchange of values, abolish the money difference between 
gold and currency. That would do away with our borrowed money 
system, the practice of issuing promises to be redeemed in gold with- 
out the gold to comply with the promise, the source of funding bills, 
bank failures, bankruptcies and national distresses. That would in- 
sure a return at once to specie payment without the evils, hardships 
and ruin sure to attend a resumption of specie payment in gold or 
silver. That would cheapen money and promote public works, the 
construction and equipment of railroads, open up competing lines of 
transit, and insure competition in the carrying trade, the only sure 
reliance of the producer against exorbitant rates of transportation 
imposed by corporate monopolies. 

That would revive ship building, and in our diy restore our marine 
to its wonted position upon the high seas. Carry our flag at the mast- 
head of our merchantmen to the trade marts of the world, and enable 
America again to successfully compete with England for the carrying 
trade of the nations. That would do away with banks of issue. That 
would disarm the monster, a two-fold medium of exchange, by which 
the substance of the people is devoured, and drive gold from its fetid 
haunts of mere speculation into the channels of trade, there to subserve 
the sole and only legitimate purpose of its coinage, to circulate as a 
medium in the exchange of values, and thus strengthen the bonds of 
our union, and lay broader and deeper the foundations of our freedom 
and independence. 

That would free the toiling millions of the nation from an impending 
slavery, not so inhuman perhaps as that which was imposed upon the 
Helots of Sparta, or the African in America, but more universal than 
either, and no less potent in oppression than the slavery imposed by 
the Feudal System, which was developed in that darkness which spread 
over Europe upon the fall of the Roman Empire, and which bore 
unrestricted sway until about the close of the eleventh century, when 
the crusaders marched to rescue the Holy Land from the rule and the 
cruelties of the infidel ; which epoch, so eventful in the world's history, 
though slow in its developments, having marked the earth with blood 
during two centuries, roused Europe to the espousal of the cause of 



32 AMERICAN FINANCE, ITS EVILS AND ITS REMEDIES. 

civil equality, and by the aid of the enlightening influences of com- 
merce finally dissolved the fetters of the Feudal System and drove the 
Feudal lords, the aristocracy, to discover some other means by which 
to continue their mastery over labor. They were not long in making 
the discovery. They seized the scepter of finance, and merging into a 
monied aristocracy, they and their successors have from thence to this 
hour, without intermission, inexorably and relentlessly wielded it to 
the undoing of labor, not only in Europe, but have followed the 
pilgrims to the new world. And when the Republic rose from the 
crushing embrace of the parent country, this insidious foe to her per- 
petuity was found lurking in her councils. 

It passed unheeded, that a system of finance which imparts strength 
and perpetuity to a monarchy must prove distinctive to a Republic and 
mark the period of its overthrow. 

A monarchy is a creature of the concentration of sovereign powers, 
and rests upon the civil inequality of men, while a Republic is created 
by a defusion of the powers of sovereignty and rests upon the civil 
equality of men. 

And it is most strange that the principle of equality, vital to a Re- 
public, and which animated the fathers and gave victory to their cause, 
should have been overlooked in their adoption of the English system 
of finance. 

England bowed before the prowess and patriotism of her oppressed 
colonists, but not belore she had planted deep in the bosom of the 
young nation the poisoned shafts of human and financial slavery, more 
threatening to a Republic, when prejudiced by fixed opinions and love 
of power, than all the mailed hosts with which she might have sought 
to invade our soil. 

Fixed opinions, even prejudices, often repel the attacks of reason, 
and when alloyed with self-interest, convert ancient evils into vested 
rights. The demands of justice, and the promptings of the most ex- 
alted philanthropy and patriotism, are met with sordid indifference. 

Point to the condition of labor in Great Britain and on the continent ; 
to the excessive toil demanded from even women in the coal mines of 
England and Belgium, and from tender children in the fen-gangs of 
England, which deprives childhood of its bouyancy, home of its 
charms, and which supplants intelligent and sturdy youth by ignorance 
and premature decrepitude, and prove as you may that the monetary 
system under which they live is the ostensible cause ; still the votaries 
of wealth and power, the monied aristocracy, with a blind indiffer- 
ence to the rights and welfare of others, will, with the death grapple, 
cleave to the system that exalts them, though it may degrade their 
fellow men. 

The yoke of the Feudal lords has been long since buried beneath 
the rubbish of ages. 

Manhood slavery in America has been stricken down in blood, and 
my humble petition is that our financial slavery may be overthrown 
without meeting a like fate. 



» 31 



8Q 








\ 1 








v - .. ~ <* 







/ :m&, %s /Jtev \/ -Mfc v** 



